Circa 702-765
Imam

Religion and Law. Ja'far ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ja'far al-Sadiq), a lineal descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, is the sixth imam for the Twelver Shi'is, who today are the majority religious group in Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Iraq. The Twelvers regarded Ja'far as the founder of their school of jurisprudence, which is called Ja'fari in his honor. Traditions traced back to him, of which there are many, have legal authority for followers of the Ja'fari school.

Patience. Ja'far appears to have lived all of his life in Madinah, the early religious center of Islam. Forewarned by the fate of his great-grandfather, al-Husayn ibn 'Ali, who, while trying to lead a revolt, had been slain with many of his family at Karbala' in Iraq by an Umayyad army in 680, Ja'far preferred a quietist policy. Thereby he was...