In the year 158 AH Mansur was succeeded by Mahdi Abbasi...

In the year 158 AH Mansur was succeeded by Mahdi Abbasi, who ruled for ten years and in 169 AH he was succeeded by Hadi, who could not remain in power for more than a year. In 170 AH Harun came to the throne who had Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as) assassinated through poison in 183 AH. At that time, the age of the Imam was fifty-five years, of which twenty years passed under the care of his father and then he held the position of Imamate for a period of thirty-five years.

The childhood of Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as) Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as) since his childhood had all the traits of being the successor of Imam al-Sadiq (as) as he had many extraordinary traits, to list a few: When Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as) was only 5 years old, Abu Hanifa came to visit Imam al-Sadiq (as), and he saw Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as), so he narrates: I, Abu Hanifa, asked him (Imam al-Kadhim), about the source of the acts of disobedience to Allah, he (as) answered: the source of any sin is unquestionably one of the three: either Allah makes man do them, or Allah and the servant are both responsible, or the servant alone is responsible.

If Allah is the source of sins (which certainly He is not) then it is improper for Him to punish the servants for that which they did not commit. If Allah and the servants are together responsible for the sins (this cannot be true either) then it is improper for the stronger partner to wrong the weak partner. And if the servant is responsible for his sins (and this is true), then the Lord may pardon him or punish him for the commitment of such a sin.

After I had heard so, I left before I could meet Abu-Abdillah (Imam al-Sadiq) since those words were sufficient for me.[^2] It is interesting to note that the fact that this belief in predestination is something the tyrant rulers made up, they wanted to justify their crimes by means of this belief; their goal was that the people should consider them as being given power through destiny and that people should not question their authority.

In another incident, Abu Hanifa once came to see Imam al-Sadiq (as) and when he saw the young boy (Imam al-Kadhim), he asked a question to him (as). He asked: If a person visits your town then where should he go to answer the call of nature?