2. His Imamate: Continuation of Scholarly Jihād
Duringthe 34 yearsofimamateofas-Sādiq(a.s.)greaterpossibilitiesand
a more favorable climate existedfor himto propagate religious teach-
ings.ThiscameaboutasaresultofrevoltsinIslamiclands,especiallythe
uprising ofthe Muswaddahto overthrow the Umayyad caliphate,and
the bloody wars which finally led to the fall and extinction of the
Umayyads. The greater opportunities for Shi’ite teachingswere alsoa
resultofthefavourablegroundthefifthImamhadpreparedduringthe
twentyyearsofhisimamatethroughthepropagationofthetrueteach-
ings of Islam and the sciences of the Ahlu ‘l-Bayt of the Prophet.
Imam as-Sādiq tookadvantageofthe occasionto propagate thereli-
gioussciencesuntiltheveryend ofhisimamate,whichcoincidedwith
theendoftheUmayyadandbeginningoftheAbbasidcaliphates.Hein-
structedmanyscholarsindifferentfieldsoftheintellectualandtransmit-
tedsciences,suchasZurārah,MuhammadibnMuslim,Mu’minat-Tāq,
Hishām ibn Hakam, Abān ibn Taghlib, Hishām ibn Sālim, Hurayz,
HishāmKalbiNassābah,andJābiribnHayyān,thealchemist.Evensome
important Sunni scholars such as Sufyān Thawri, Abu Hanifa (the
founderoftheHanafischooloflaw),QadiSukuni,QadiAbu’l-Bakhtari
andothers,hadthehonorofbeinghisstudents.Itissaidthathisclasses
andsessions of instruction producedfour thousand scholars of hadith
andothersciences.Referingtothetwoyearsthathespentasastudentof
Imam as-Sādiq (a.s.), Abu Hanifa used to say: “If it had not been for
those two years, Nu‘mān[45]would have perished.”
ThenumberoftraditionspreservedfromthefifthandsixthImamsis
morethanallthehadith thathavebeenrecordedfromthe Prophetand
theotherten Imamscombined.Thatis whythe Shi‘aschooloflawsin
Islam is known as “Ja‘fari”.