8 Rabi al-Awwal: The Martyrdom of Imam Hasan al-Askari

Imam Hasan al-Askari was born in Medina in 846 CE (232 AH), the son of Imam Ali al-Hadi, the tenth Shia Imam. During his childhood, the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil forcibly summoned Imam al-Hadi and his family to Samarra — the Abbasid military capital in present-day Iraq — as a way of keeping the Shia Imams under closer surveillance. Hasan spent most of the rest of his life in that city, and it was this forced residence in Samarra’s military quarter, known as “al-Askar,” that gave both him and his father the title “al-Askari.”

After his father’s death in 868 CE, Hasan became Imam at around twenty-two years old. But the Abbasid caliphs, wary of the Shia Imams’ growing influence among the population, kept him under strict surveillance and confinement, so that direct visits from his followers were rare and often had to happen in secret. Because of this, his contact with the Shia community was maintained mostly through a network of trusted representatives, or wikala — the same system that later evolved into the more formal “Four Deputies” during the early period of his son’s occultation.

Imam Hasan al-Askari died in Samarra in 874 CE (260 AH), at around twenty-eight years old, after roughly six years as Imam. Most Shia sources attribute his death to deliberate poisoning, ordered by the reigning caliph, al-Mu’tamid — who, according to these accounts, feared both the Imam’s growing influence and prophecies concerning his promised son, Imam al-Mahdi. It’s worth stating honestly, though, that not all Shia scholars agree on this point: Sheikh Mufid, a leading 10th–11th century scholar, also raised the possibility of a natural death from illness, alongside the poisoning account more widely held among Imami scholars.

What makes Imam Hasan al-Askari’s martyrdom especially significant historically is what happened immediately afterward. His son, Muhammad (Imam al-Mahdi), was kept hidden from infancy out of fear of Abbasid persecution; his existence was known only to those closest to Imam Hasan al-Askari. This secrecy led to serious confusion and division among Shia Muslims after the Imam’s death — including a rival claim to the imamate by Imam Hasan al-Askari’s brother, Ja’far, who came to be known in Twelver Shia tradition as “Ja’far al-Kadhdhab” (“Ja’far the Liar”) for denying the existence of the Imam’s son. This succession crisis marks the formal starting point of the belief in the Occultation of Imam Hasan al-Askari’s son — the doctrine that would become the central theological core of Twelver Shia belief about Imam al-Mahdi.

Imam Hasan al-Askari was buried in the same house where his father had also been buried, in present-day Samarra, Iraq — a site that later became the al-Askari Shrine, one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Shia Islam. During the Iraq War, the shrine was the target of two terrorist attacks, in 2006 and 2007, which destroyed its golden dome and minarets; a full restoration was completed years later.

Unlike the solar Gregorian calendar, the Islamic lunar calendar follows the moon, and its year runs about 11 days shorter. As a result, the Gregorian equivalent of 8 Rabi al-Awwal falls roughly 11 days earlier each year than the year before. This year (1448 AH), it corresponds to Friday, August 21, 2026. Like the rest of Noorjoo’s calendar content, only this section is updated annually; the moon-sighting used to fix the exact date may shift it by a day or two depending on the religious authority followed.