As such...

As such, during the reign of Harun, Imam ar-Ridha ( ‘a ) enjoyed relative freedom and he was able to attend to the scientific and cultural activities of the Shi‘ah, to even declare openly his Imamate and desist from practicing dissimulation { taqiyyah }, to discuss and converse with the followers of other schools and religions, and convince some of them.

As Ash‘ari al-Qummi narrates, “During the time of Imam al-Kazim and Imam ar-Ridha ( ‘a ) a number of Sunni and Zaydi divines embraced Shi‘ism and recognized the Imamate of these two Imams.”[^14] Some of the ‘Abbasid caliphs had strived to monitor the pure Imams ( ‘a ) with the aim of controlling them. When the Imams ( ‘a ) were asked to move from Medina, the caliphs had tried their best not to allow the Imams ( ‘a ) to pass by the Shi‘ah-populated regions.

Along this line, pursuant to Ma’mun’s order, they brought Imam ar-Ridha ( ‘a ) to Marv through the Basrah-Ahwaz-Fars route and not through the Shi‘ah-concentrated Kufah-Jabal-Qum route.[^15] As narrated by Ya‘qubi, when Imam al-Hadi ( ‘a ) was brought to Samarra at the order of the ‘Abbasid caliph Mutawakkil, the ‘Abbasids who accompanied the Imam made a sojourn so to pass Baghdad by night to get to Samarra because as they arrived near Baghdad, they learned that a large group of people was waiting to meet the Imam.[^16] Since the Shi‘ah were mostly scattered across different regions and far-flung places during the ‘Abbasid period, the pure Imams ( ‘a ) founded the proxy institutions of representation, appointing respective deputies and proxies in the different regions and cities to serve as a means of communication between them and the Shi‘ah.

This affair commenced at the time of Imam as-Sadiq ( ‘a ). When the caliph’s apparatus gained a firmer grip over the pure Imams ( ‘a ) making Shi‘ah’s access to the Imam of their time more problematic, the institution of proxy and the role of the Imam’s deputies gained more prominence.