Ziyad says that Imam Abu Hanifa (founder of the Hanafi...

Ziyad says that Imam Abu Hanifa (founder of the Hanafi school of Sunni law) was asked about the most learned man he had seen. He replied: “Ja’far b. Muhammad. (7)” Nuh b. Darraj asked Ibn Abi Layla: “Would you leave (i.e. change) an opinion you have expressed or a judgment you have delivered for any other person’s words?” He said: “No, except one man.” Nuh asked: “And who is he?” He said: “Ja’far b. Muhammad.

(8)”’ The above is only a partial list of Sunni scholars and Imams who came to the Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq and benefited from his teachings. Add to it the names of the Sufis , atheists, Hindus and Kharijites who flocked to his madrasa , and one can appreciate what a treasure of knowledge was given to people by the Imam. When others benefitted so much, how much more must have been gathered by the Shi’is? One of his well-known disciples, Aban b. Taghlib narrated from him thirty thousand traditions.

Hasan b. Ali al-Washsha’ said: “I found in the mosque of Kufa nine hundred shaykhs , every one of them saying ‘Ja’far b. Muhammad told me … ‘(9) “ In al-Munjid we find: “His (Ja’far as-Sadiq’s) madrasa was the continuation of his father’s (al-Baqir’s) madrasa , and was extremely successful in spreading Islamic culture; the number of its students in Madina was at least 4,000, and they came from all Muslim countries. There was a large branch school in Kufa.

One of the greatest achievements of as-Sadiq was his call to write and edit; before that little writing was done. The number of books written by his students was at least four hundred by four hundred writers.

(10)” The Shaykh Muhammad Husayn al-Muzaffar writes: “The best days for the Shi’is were the transition period, the last years of the Umayyads and the early years of the Abbasids … The Shi’is took advantage of this breathing space to drink from the stream of the knowledge of the Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq; they travelled to him to receive from him the commands of religion and its reality. His disciples narrated from him every branch of knowledge, as is seen in the Shi’is books.

His disciples were not only from the Shi’a community but all the sects narrated from him, as is clearly mentioned in the books of, hadith and rijal . Ibn ‘ Uqdah, the Shaykh at-Tusi and the Muhaqqiq enumerated his narrators, and the total came to four thousand. (11)” This open teaching and unrestricted preaching increased the number of Shi’ites in every region throughout the Muslim world.