The descendants of Ali had been living quietly in Medina all this time, building up a legacy of scholarship that by the 700s amounted to a private university. Law and theology were the main subjects, but they included the observational science of the time. If Allah created the world, then studying the world was a way of exploring God’s greatness. Some students specialized in natural science, possibly starting to work with alchemy, which eventually led to chemistry. Two of the sixth Imam’s students went on to prominence under the Abbasids and became the founders of major schools of legal thought, the Hanifis and Malikis.
Another student became known as the father of Arabic chemistry. Jabir ibn Hayyan’s books number in the hundreds, though modern scholars raise the possibility that the name became traditional and legendary, attached to books written by others from the Shi’ite university in Medina. In any case, these books present an early analysis of elements. Jabir describes hydrochloric and nitric acid, explains distillation and crystallization, and presents the “sulfur-mercury theory of metals.” Some of his books were translated into Latin, where his name was spelled Geber.
The sixth Imam, al-Sadiq, had a number of sons, including an older one named Ismail, and a younger named Musa. Al-Sadiq quietly chose his son Musa to be the next Imam, but it was not made public for fear of Caliph al-Mansur. During this time, Ismail died. The Ismaili sect of Shi’ism came out of disbelief that Ismail had died (he was hidden as the Mahdi to return someday) and a refusal to believe he had not been chosen as the successor Imam. Ismailis count a line of Imams descended from Ismail’s son.
The fourth, fifth and sixth Imams had insisted that their families and students should stay as far from political power as possible. Most of them did. But a cousin who was descended from both Hassan and Husayn had been among the candidates supported by the revolution in 750. This cousin, Muhammad — whose laqab name was al-Nafs al-Zakiyyah meaning The Pure Soul — went undercover and began gathering support around Iraq and Iran. Al-Mansur sent out spies to find him and arrested members of his family.
In 762, Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyyah moved openly to take control of Medina. He was in control there for about as long as it took al-Mansur to send an army from Iraq, and then he was forced to defend Medina using the old trenches (more irony). His brother Ibrahim started a second stage of revolt in Basra. For a few exciting months, rebels all over Arabia and Iraq moved to support the brothers. It was only a matter of time until these rebellions were suppressed. The rebels and their imprisoned relatives were all killed.
Interestingly, Imam al-Sadiq stayed neutral, even leaving Medina during the rebellion. He never swore loyalty to al-Mansur, but neither did he do anything to support rebels. The Caliph kept the Imam under intense surveillance and arrested him several times, bringing him and the elders of Medina to Iraq. At last, he ordered his governor of Medina to poison the Imam, who thus died the same death of his father and grandfather. He is said to have named five successors in his will, including the actual son he intended as successor, but also including the Caliph himself and even the poisoning governor. This kept the Caliph from carrying out an order to execute the successor.
Each of this Imam’s sons was considered the next Imam by at least some people. The Ismailis believed it was Ismail, who predeceased his father. For a short time, another group held to the next son, believing that age precedence mattered most. He had a physical disability and died soon after his father. The group that held to his Imamate didn’t come to matter in history, since the claim was so weak that most of them later accepted the younger brother Musa, known as al-Kazim. But it’s an example of how the Shi’ites came to be fractured into so many sects.
Who would have guessed that Ismail, dying before his father, would be followed by a sect that is still active today? Ismailis came to power in Egypt during the 10th century, and after fracturing again, the Nizari-Ismaili sect created the powerful Assassin cult. Today they recognize the Aga Khan as Ismail’s successor and have become peaceful.
Even apart from the uprising of 762, Caliph Mansur was harsh to the family of Ali. The story is told by his perfume supplier, who must have heard a lot of court gossip, that in the year he died, he gave a set of keys to his son’s wife. He was going on Hajj, and travel was always dangerous, so everyone treated it as a possible end of life. The keys, he told his daughter-in-law, were for all of the rooms in his palace, but there was one room to open ONLY in the event of his death, and then ONLY by her or his son Mahdi. He died, and they opened the room. In the large, airy room there were many dried corpses laid out, labeled in a systematic way. They were all descendants of Ali, executed or assassinated at the Caliph’s command. Some were children. (Kennedy, 15-6)
- A Historical Research on the Lives of the Twelve Shi’a Imams. Mahdi Mahgrebi
- When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, by Hugh Kennedy