Musa al-Mubarraqa

Mūsā ibn Muḥammad al-Mubarqaʿ was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Musa was the son of Muhammad al-Jawad and the younger brother of Ali al-Hadi , the ninth and tenth Imams in Twelver Shia. He is known to be a common ancestor of the Ridawi , who descended from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Ali al-Rida , the eighth Imam in Twelver Shia and Musa's grandfather. He was known by the title al-Mubarqaʿ probably because he covered his face with a to remain anonymous in public. Traditions narrated by him are cited by some Twelver scholars, including al-Kulayni and al-Mufid.

Biography Musa al-Mubarqa' was the younger son of Muhammad al-Jawad , the ninth Imam in Twelver Shia. His elder brother Ali al-Hadi succeeded their father al-Jawad as the tenth Imam. Musa had two or four sisters, named variously in the sources. The Twelver theologian al-Mufid names them as Fatima and Amama, while the biographical source lists them as Khadija, Hakima, and Umm Kulthum. This book is attributed to al-Tabari al-Saghir, the eleventh-century Twelver scholar. The Sunni historian Fakhr Razi adds Behjat and Barihe to these names, saying that none of them left any descendants. The children of al-Jawad were all born to Samana, a freed slave of Moroccan origin. It is through Ali and Musa that the lineage of al-Jawad continued. In particular, the Ridawi line of s leads to Musa. These are the descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Ali al-Rida , the eighth Imam in Twelver Shia and Musa's grandfather.

Musa was a small child when his father al-Jawad died in 835 CE at the age of about twenty-five, probably poisoned at the instigation of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim . The will attributed to al-Jawad stipulates that his elder son Ali would inherit from him and be responsible for his younger brother Musa and his sisters. This will can be found in , a collection of Shia traditions compiled by the prominent Twelver traditionist al-Kulayni . There was also an oral designation of Ali as the next Imam, delivered to a close confidant by al-Jawad. After his death, this testimony was corroborated by a small assembly of Shia notables, and the majority of his followers thus accepted the imamate of Ali, who is commonly known by the titles al-Hadi and al-Naqi . A small group also gathered around Musa but soon returned to his brother Ali after the former dissociated himself from them. Musa later settled in Qom, a rising Shia center in the modern-day Iran. Traditions narrated by him are cited by some Twelver scholars, including al-Kulayni in his , al-Mufid in his , and Shaykh Tusi in his . Musa was known by the title al-Mubarqa' probably because he covered his face with a to remain unidentified in public. He died in Qom in 909 CE and the construction of his current shrine was sponsored by the Safavid king Tahmasp I .