Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq

His expressions and allusions in all branches of knowledge were perfect. He was the exemplar for all the masters, and everyone relied on him. He was the perfect model, the shaykh of all the men of God, and the imām of all the followers of Muhammad ﷺ. He was both the leader of the adherents of intuition and the guide of the adherents of love. He took precedence among the believers and was honored by the ascetics as well. He was outstanding in recording the inner truths and without peer in the fine points of the inner mysteries of revelation and exegesis.

The son of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir ﵁, son of al-Imam Zain al-Abidin ﵁, son of al-Husayn, son of Ali bin Abi Talib ﵁, Jafar ﵁ was born on the eighth of Ramadan in the year 83 H. His mother was the daughter of al-Qassim whose great grandfather was Abu Bakr as-Siddiq .

He spent his life in worship and acts of piety for the sake of Allah. He rejected all positions of fame in favor of uzla or isolation from the lower world. One of his contemporaries, Umar ibn Abi-l-Muqdam, said, “When I look at Jafar bin Muhammad I see the lineage and the secret of the Prophet Muhammad salla united in him.”

He received from the Prophet ﷺ two lines of inheritance: the secret of the Prophet ﷺ through Ali ﵁, and the secret of the Prophet ﷺ through Abu Bakr ﵁, . In him the two lineages met and for that reason he was called “The Inheritor of the Prophetic Station (Maqam an-Nubuwwa) and the Inheritor of the Truthful Station (Maqam as-siddiqiyya).” In him was reflected the light of the knowledge of Truth and Reality. That light shone forth and that knowledge was spread widely through him during his lifetime.

Jafar ﵁ narrated from his father, Muhammad al-Baqir v, that a man came to his grandfather, Zain al-Abidin ﵁, and said, “Tell me about Abu Bakr ﵁!” He said, “You mean as-Siddiq?” The man said, “How do you call him as-Siddiq when he is against you, the Family of the Prophet ﷺ?” He replied, “Woe to you. The Prophet salla called him as-Siddiq, and Allah accepted his title of as-Siddiq. If you want to come to me, keep the love of Abu Bakr and Umar in your heart.”

Jafar ﵁ said, “The best intercession that I hope for is the intercession of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq ﵁.” From him is reported also the following invocation: “O Allah, You are my Witness that I love Abu Bakr and I love Umar and if what I am saying is not true may Allah cut me off from the intercession of Muhammad ﷺ.”

He took the knowledge of hadith from two sources: from his father through Ali ﵁ and from his maternal grandfather al-Qassim ﵁. Then he increased his knowledge of hadith by sitting with Urwa, Aata, Nafi and Zuhri. The two Sufyans, Sufyan ath-Thawri and Sufyan ibn Uyayna, Imam Malik, Imam Abu Hanifa, and al-Qattan all narrated hadith through him, as did many others from later hadith scholars. He was a mufassir al-Qur’an or master in exegesis, a scholar of jurisprudence, and one of the greatest mujtahids (qualified to give legal decisions) in Madinah.

Jafar ﵁ acquired both the external religious knowledge as well as the internal confirmation of its reality in the heart. The latter was reflected in his many visions and miraculous powers, too numerous to tell.