On 6th of the Islamic month of Ramadhan in 201 AH, a grand ceremony was held in the Khorasani city of Merv (presently in Turkmenistan) by the Abbasid caliph, Mamoun, to officially declare Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), as heir apparent. This was part of an intricate plot to tarnish the unsullied image of the Ahl al-Bayt. Courtiers and the masses, beginning with Mamoun’s own son, Abbas, swore allegiance to Imam Reza (AS), in whose name coins were minted, while the official colour of the Abbasids was changed from the black to the green of the Prophet’s Household.
The crafty Mamoun, alarmed at the popularity amongst the masses of the Prophet’s progeny and concerned about the lack of legitimacy of the rule of the Abbasids, who had deceived the ummah some 70 years earlier to hijack the caliphate after obliterating the Omayyad usurpers, forced Imam Reza (AS) to leave Medina and come to his capital Merv in distant Khorasan. Here he offered to abdicate the caliphate in the Imam’s favour, but was frustrated in his devilish design by the curt reply: “If the caliphate is really yours, you ought not give to others what God has given you as a trust; and if it does not belong to you, how can you give to others what is not yours.”
After over two months of pressures coupled with threats of covert death, he forced the Imam to at least accept being his heir apparent, despite the glaring age gap of 22 years between the young 31 year old ruler and the 53-year old heir apparent, who might not be expected to outlive the person he was supposed to succeed. To the horror of Mamoun, his plot backfired as the popularity of Imam Reza (AS) further grew among the people. Two years later in 203 AH, he martyred the Imam through poisoning of food, and shifted the Abbasid capital back to Baghdad.
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