The lesson
- Shia from Baghdad and other cities who came to Medina for the Hajj put their questions to Abd Allah ibn Musa, whose answers were wrong, and then to Imam al-Jawad, who answered them correctly, and they rejoiced and prayed for him (Dala'il al-Imama; Bihar al-Anwar).
- When al-Ma'mun proposed to marry his daughter Umm al-Fadl to the Imam, the Abbasid nobles objected, and a session was arranged in Baghdad in which the chief judge Yahya ibn Aktham would test him. Yahya asked about a pilgrim in ihram who kills game. The Imam set out the different cases the question could mean and asked which one he intended; Yahya could not answer, and the Imam gave the ruling for every case. The Abbasid scholars and courtiers acknowledged his mastery of the law (al-Ihtijaj of al-Tabrisi).
- Nine of his debates are reported, four of them with Yahya ibn Aktham and one with Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, the chief judge of Baghdad, on the Hajj, divorce, the penalty for theft and questions of belief (al-Ihtijaj of al-Tabrisi). In one, when Yahya cited reports in praise of Abu Bakr and Umar, the Imam answered with the Prophet's instruction to measure any hadith attributed to him against the Book of God and his Sunna, and showed that one of those reports contradicts the verse: We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (50:16) (al-Ihtijaj).
Questions
When Shia from Baghdad and other cities came to Medina for the Hajj, to whom did they first put their questions, whose answers were wrong?
In the session arranged by al-Ma'mun, what question did the chief judge Yahya ibn Aktham ask Imam al-Jawad?
Questions are written by AI from the lesson’s facts, and each answer was checked against its fact.