The First Grandson
When Maulatona Fatema al-Zahra (AS) gave birth to her first child in 3 AH (624/625 CE), the Prophet (SAW) came immediately. He called for the adhan to be recited in the right ear and the iqamah in the left, gave the baby a date sweetened in his own mouth, and named him Hasan — a name previously unknown among the Arabs. The Prophet said: “I have named him with the name that Allah has named him.”
He was the first grandson of the Prophet of Allah. And for the Prophet, that was everything.
The Prophet would be sitting in his majlis and Hasan would run in, still small, still wobbling on his feet — and the Prophet would stop what he was saying, open his arms, and take the child into his embrace. He would carry him on his shoulders. He would prostrate in prayer and hold the position until Hasan climbed off his back on his own time.
He said:
اَلحَسَنُ وَالحُسَينُ سَيِّدَا شَبَابِ أَهلِ الجَنَّة “Hasan and Husain are the masters of the youth of the people of Paradise.”
And: “He who loves them has loved me, and he who hates them has hated me.”
Imam Hasan (AS) was named al-Mujtaba — the Chosen, the Elect, the One Specially Selected. In the Bohra Ismaili tradition, the name carries theological weight: he was chosen not only by the Prophet’s love but by divine designation, as the second link in the chain of Imamate.
His Birth and Upbringing
He was born on the 15th of Ramadan, 3 AH in Medina. His mother was Maulatona Fatema al-Zahra (AS); his father was Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS); his grandfather was the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). In the history of Islam, no one before or after has been born into a more spiritually concentrated family.
He was roughly 6-7 years old when the Prophet (SAW) passed away. He watched his mother Fatema die of grief within months of the Prophet’s death — a grief she bore with dignity but that ended her life at an age some traditions say was as young as 18. He then grew up under his father’s guidance through the long years of the first three caliphates — years during which Imam Ali remained in Medina, teaching, preserving the inner knowledge, waiting.
When Imam Ali became caliph in 35 AH and moved the seat of government to Kufa, Hasan was by his side. He was present for all three of his father’s wars — the Battle of the Camel, the Battle of Siffin, the Battle of Nahrawan. He fought and counseled and prayed alongside his father. And he was with his father in the Great Mosque of Kufa on the 19th of Ramadan, 40 AH, when the assassin’s poisoned sword fell.
The Second Imam
When Imam Ali (AS) was martyred in 40 AH, Imam Hasan (AS) became the 2nd Imam at approximately age 37. The people of Kufa — an enormously important political base — pledged their allegiance to him. He accepted the caliphate.
His brief caliphate (40-41 AH) would be defined entirely by a single momentous decision — one that has been debated, lamented, and ultimately vindicated ever since.
The Peace Treaty with Muawiyah — and Its Wisdom
Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan had been the governor of Syria since the time of Uthman. He had refused to accept Imam Ali’s authority and had effectively split the Muslim world. When Imam Ali was killed, Muawiyah saw his opportunity.
He marshaled a large and battle-hardened Syrian army and marched toward Iraq. Imam Hasan (AS), now leading the Muslim community, sent a force to meet him. But what the Imam found in his own camp was alarming: the Kufan army — the same army that had pledged him allegiance — was riddled with dissent. Kharijite factions, tribal leaders who had made secret deals with Muawiyah, men who were prepared to betray him at the critical moment. His own general was assassinated. And then, stunningly, the camp mutinied: soldiers attacked Imam Hasan himself, stabbing him in the thigh as he tried to address them.
The Imam survived. But he was now bleeding, commanding an unreliable army, facing a disciplined Syrian force that vastly outnumbered him — and he understood with prophetic clarity what would happen if the battle continued. Tens of thousands of Muslims would die. Muawiyah would win militarily regardless. And the Shia — the followers of the House of the Prophet — would be annihilated.
Imam Hasan (AS) chose peace.
The Treaty of Hasan (41 AH) transferred political power to Muawiyah on specific conditions:
- Muawiyah would not designate an heir; the community would choose after his death
- The followers of Imam Ali would be given amnesty and security
- There would be no persecution of the Shia
- Muawiyah would govern by the Quran and the Sunnah
Muawiyah violated virtually every condition of the treaty within years. He designated his son Yazid as heir. He persecuted the Shia. He governed according to his own interests.
But the Imam had done something more important than win a battle. He had preserved:
- The lives of his companions and followers
- The existence of the Imamate itself
- The chance for the truth to survive long enough for Karbala to happen — for Imam Husain to one day make the stand that would resonate through all of history
Imam Husain (AS) himself, when companions questioned the peace treaty, defended his brother completely. He said: “By Allah, what he [Hasan] did was better for the Shia than anything the sun has ever risen upon.”
And the Prophet (SAW) had said of Imam Hasan: “This son of mine is a sayyid (master/leader), and through him Allah will make peace between two great factions of Muslims.”
The peace treaty was not defeat. It was prophecy fulfilled.
Life in Medina — The Years of Patience
After the treaty, Imam Hasan (AS) withdrew to Medina with his household. For approximately nine years, he lived under Muawiyah’s rule — watched, restricted, sometimes menaced, but never broken.
He was known in Medina for two qualities above all others: extraordinary generosity and absolute patience.
On generosity: it was said that he made Hajj on foot (walking from Medina to Mecca) twenty-five times in his life — an almost inconceivable feat of physical devotion. He gave away his wealth not once but repeatedly — twice in his life he gave away everything he owned and began again. The poor of Medina knew they could come to him. He never turned anyone away.
On patience: Hilm — the Arabic word for clemency, patience, restraint in the face of provocation — was considered one of his defining qualities. When someone was rude to him or insulted him, his response was typically generosity and kind words, not anger. He understood that the dignity of the Ahl al-Bayt was maintained not by responding to every insult but by living in a way that made the insult look absurd.
The Imam who walked softly and gave everything. The Imam who accepted humiliation in order to preserve something larger. This is a pattern the Bohra tradition honors deeply: the inner sovereignty of the Imam, unmoved even when outward circumstances are reduced.
His Martyrdom — 7 Safar, 50 AH
Imam Hasan (AS) was poisoned. Most historical sources — Sunni and Shia alike — agree on this. The poison was administered through the agency of Muawiyah, who saw the Imam as an obstacle to his plan to anoint his son Yazid as successor. As long as Imam Hasan lived, any future claim to leadership by Yazid would face the moral weight of the Prophet’s grandson as a living counter-authority.
He was poisoned multiple times. The final dose was fatal. He died in Medina on the 7th of Safar, 50 AH (670 CE), at approximately 46 years of age.
Before he died, he requested to be buried at the side of his grandfather, the Prophet (SAW) — in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. His brother Husain tried to fulfill this wish, but Marwan ibn al-Hakam (a Umayyad official) and Aisha’s household blocked the procession with armed men. Rather than allow bloodshed, Husain honored his brother’s wish by burying him in Jannat al-Baqi — the ancient graveyard of Medina, where his mother Fatema al-Zahra was also buried.
The arrows that were fired at his funeral procession — by the Umayyad forces blocking the burial — remain one of the darkest images of early Islamic history.
Jannat al-Baqi — The Buried Grief
Jannat al-Baqi (Garden of Paradise) is the graveyard adjacent to the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. In it are buried:
- Imam Hasan ibn Ali (AS) — 2nd Imam
- Maulatona Fatema al-Zahra (AS) — according to most Shia traditions
- Ali ibn al-Husain Zayn al-Abidin (AS) — 4th Imam
- Muhammad al-Baqir (AS) — 5th Imam
- Ja’far al-Sadiq (AS) — 6th Imam
- Four of the Prophet’s wives
- The Prophet’s aunt Safiyya and others of the Ahl al-Bayt
In 1925, after the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz, the Wahhabi authorities demolished the shrines, domes, and gravestones of Jannat al-Baqi — including those above the graves of the Imams. The graves of the Imams now stand marked only by simple stones, without the domes and structures that Muslims had maintained for centuries.
This demolition remains an open wound in the Shia Muslim world — including the Bohra community. Visiting Jannat al-Baqi on a Ziyarat to Medina and reciting salaam upon the Imams buried there, even without architectural markers, is one of the most moving acts of devotion a Bohra mumin can perform.
السَّلَامُ عَلَيكُم يَا أَهلَ البَيتِ النَّبَوِيّ Peace be upon you, O People of the House of the Prophet.
The 2nd Imam in Bohra Ta’wil
In the chain of Fatimid Ismaili Imamate that is the theological foundation of the Dawoodi Bohra community, Imam Hasan (AS) occupies the position of the 2nd Imam — the second link in an unbroken chain that runs from Imam Ali through 21 Imams to Imam al-Tayyib (AS), who entered occultation in 526 AH, and thence through the Dais to the present day.
The Imam’s role in ta’wil is that of the Asas al-Rabb — the foundation of the Lord — who holds the inner knowledge of the divine in trust. Imam Hasan carries this trust from his father Imam Ali, and passes it to his brother Imam Husain. The chain does not break.
His birthday on 15 Ramadan falls in the blessed month — a confluence of the imam’s milad within the most sacred month of the Islamic year. It is observed in the Bohra community as a day of joy and remembrance.
The Brothers — Together Forever
The two brothers are inseparable in Islamic spirituality. The Prophet always named them together. In the Quran, the verse of Mubahala (3:61) refers to abnaa’ana — “our sons” — and classical commentators identify this as Hasan and Husain. The Hadith al-Kisa (the Hadith of the Cloak) places both under the Prophet’s cloak alongside Fatema and Ali, as the five purest souls.
And when Imam Hasan died, it was Imam Husain who washed and shrouded him. When Imam Husain was martyred twenty years later at Karbala, it was the legacy of both brothers — and their mother Fatema, and their father Ali, and their grandfather the Prophet — that the world witnessed.
They are inseparable in eternity.
The dua that closes every remembrance of this family:
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَآلِ مُحَمَّدٍ وَارحَمنَا بِحُبِّهِم وَتَوَلِّنَا فِي دُنيَانَا وَآخِرَتِنَا وَاحشُرنَا فِي زُمرَتِهِم
O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad. Have mercy on us through our love for them, take us under Your guardianship in this world and the next, and gather us in their company.