Imam Muhammad Ibn Al Hasan Al Da’i (D. 360AH)
Imam Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Dāʿī
Al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh — Peace Be Upon Him
He is Imam Abū ʿAbdullāh al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Muḥammad, son of Imam al-Ḥasan ibn al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shajarī ibn al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may God be pleased with them).
This is the Imam who joined together the Qāsimiyya and the Nāṣiriyya after the great divergence between them caused by the difference in legal reasoning (ijtihād). He set forth the doctrine that every qualified jurist (mujtahid) is correct in matters subject to independent reasoning (al-ijtihādiyyāt).
“Were the earth to sway for something on account of its greatness, it would sway for the knowledge of Abū ʿAbdullāh al-Dāʿī.”
After the death of Imam al-Hādī ilā al-Ḥaqq, the Zaydī scholarly community had diverged into two camps — the Qāsimiyya, following the jurisprudential school of the al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm al-Rassī line, and the Nāṣiriyya, following the school of Imam al-Nāṣir al-Uṭrūsh. This Imam’s doctrine — that every qualified jurist is correct in matters subject to independent reasoning — provided the theological and jurisprudential grounds for their reunification, healing the great divergence.
Likewise his father, Imam al-Ḥasan ibn al-Qāsim, who preceded him in the Imamate after Imam al-Nāṣir al-Uṭrūsh, was a figure of similar stature in this tradition.
He rose at Baghdad, then reached the Daylam, where the scholars of the nation rallied to him:
Scholars of the nation who pledged allegiance to him in the year 353 AH.
He (peace be upon him) resembled the Legatee ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (peace be upon him).
- Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī
- Aḥmad
God took him at Hawsam in the year 360 AH. It is related from Imam Abū Ṭālib that he died by poison — may God’s mercy and peace be upon him.