A narration in al-Kafi has sometimes been used to claim that Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Sajjad (a) submitted to Yazid after Karbala. But when the report is compared with the early historical sources, the accounts of the Battle of al-Harrah and the judgement of Shia scholars, a more basic question emerges: did the encounter described in the narration ever take place?
Few images in Shia memory are as powerful as that of Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin (a) standing in Yazid’s court in Damascus after Karbala. His father Imam Husayn (a), his relatives and companions had been martyred, while the women and children of the Prophet’s household had been taken captive. Yet the surviving Imam helped expose the crime of Karbala in the very centre of Umayyad power.
It is therefore striking that one report in Rawdat al-Kafi, the final section of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub al-Kulayni’s al-Kafi, presents what appears to be a very different scene. According to the narration, Yazid later travelled to Medina and forced Imam al-Sajjad to acknowledge himself as his slave.
The report is sometimes presented polemically as evidence that Imam al-Sajjad eventually “pledged allegiance” to Yazid. But that description already goes beyond what the narration actually says. More importantly, the historical setting of the report raises serious problems.
The Narration at the Centre of the Debate
The narration appears in Rawdat al-Kafi, vol. 8, hadith 313. It begins with a very specific historical claim:
«إِنَّ يَزِيدَ بْنَ مُعَاوِيَةَ دَخَلَ الْمَدِينَةَ وَهُوَ يُرِيدُ الْحَجَّ»
“Yazid ibn Muawiya entered Medina intending to perform Hajj.”
The report says that Yazid first summoned a man from Quraysh and demanded that he acknowledge himself as Yazid’s slave, whom Yazid could keep or sell. The man refused and was executed.
Imam al-Sajjad was then supposedly summoned and faced with the same demand. When the Imam asked whether refusal would also lead to his execution, Yazid allegedly answered that it would. The Imam is then reported to have said:
«أَنَا عَبْدٌ مُكْرَهٌ»
“I am a coerced slave.”
Read the narration in Rawdat al-Kafi
Even if the narration were accepted exactly as transmitted, it would not describe an ordinary or willing political bay‘ah. Its own wording presents the Imam as acting under an immediate threat of death.
But an even bigger problem comes first. The entire story depends upon Yazid personally being in Medina. The historical sources tell us something else.
What the Early Sources Say Happened at al-Harrah
Yazid Remained in Syria, His Army Went to Medina
After Karbala, opposition to Yazid grew in Medina. A delegation from the city travelled to Syria and met Yazid, but on returning home the Medinans rejected his rule and expelled the Umayyad authorities.
Yazid responded militarily. He did not, according to the standard historical chronology, travel to Medina himself. Instead, he sent a Syrian army under the command of Muslim ibn Uqbah al-Murri.
Muslim defeated the people of Medina at the Battle of al-Harrah in 63 AH and entered the city. This is the setting repeatedly found in the classical Islamic historical tradition.
This creates the first major difficulty with the al-Kafi report. Its opening claim is not a minor detail that can simply be ignored. If Yazid never entered Medina intending Hajj, then the meeting described afterwards cannot have happened in the form presented.
The Humiliating Slave Pledge Really Did Happen
There is, however, an important reason why the al-Kafi narration sounds familiar.
After defeating Medina, Muslim ibn Uqbah really did impose an exceptionally humiliating form of allegiance upon its people. Historical accounts state that people were required to pledge themselves as servants or slaves of Yazid, giving the ruler sweeping authority over their lives and property.
Allama Sayyid Murtada al-Askari later brought together these early reports in Ma‘alim al-Madrasatayn, including the account that Muslim demanded allegiance from the Medinans on the basis that they were khawal of Yazid and that Yazid could exercise authority over their blood, wealth and families.
Read Askari’s collection of the Harrah reports
But the historian Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas‘udi preserves a crucial qualification. After describing the people of Medina being forced to pledge themselves as qinn, meaning slaves of Yazid, he adds:
«غير علي بن الحسين بن علي بن أبي طالب»
“Except Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib.”
According to this historical account, therefore, the slave-like pledge was real, but Imam al-Sajjad was specifically excluded from it.
That distinction is central to the whole debate. It raises the possibility that a genuine feature of the aftermath of al-Harrah, the degrading pledge imposed upon Medina, later became attached to the Imam himself.
Al-Ya‘qubi Preserves a Different Version
The early sources are not completely uniform.
Ahmad ibn Abi Ya‘qub al-Ya‘qubi correctly places Muslim ibn Uqbah, rather than Yazid, in Medina. He describes Qurashi men being required to pledge themselves as slaves of Yazid and being killed when they refused.
But al-Ya‘qubi then gives a different account of Imam al-Sajjad. According to his version, Muslim tells the Imam that he is expected to pledge as Yazid’s brother and cousin, but the Imam replies that he would even pledge as a qinn, or slave, if that was required.
This means the association between Imam al-Sajjad and a slave-like formula did exist in some early historical material. It cannot simply be said that no such tradition ever circulated.
But al-Ya‘qubi’s account still differs fundamentally from the narration in al-Kafi. Yazid is not in Medina, there is no journey by Yazid for Hajj, and the Imam is not placed in the same sequence of events described in Rawdat al-Kafi.
Al-Mufid Preserves a Much Different Meeting
The classical Imami scholar Shaykh Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Mufid preserves another account in al-Irshad.
In his version, Muslim ibn Uqbah summons Imam al-Sajjad but treats him differently from the people of Medina. Muslim brings the Imam close, treats him favourably and reportedly tells him that Yazid had instructed him to distinguish the Imam from others.
The Imam is then allowed to return to his family. There is no scene in which Yazid personally threatens him with execution and forces him to declare himself a slave.
This account became important in later Shia discussions because it presents Imam al-Sajjad as deliberately separate from the Medinan revolt without portraying him as having submitted to Yazid.
How Classical Shia Scholars Dealt With the Report
Al-Hurr al-Amili: If It Happened, It Was Taqiyyah
One classical Shia approach was not to reject the al-Kafi narration at all.
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Hurr al-Amili included the report in Wasa’il al-Shia, but the chapter in which he placed it is extremely revealing:
«باب جواز إقرار الحر بالرقية مع التقية وإن كان سيداً»
“Chapter on the permissibility of a free person acknowledging slavery under taqiyyah, even if he is a sayyid.”
Read al-Hurr al-Amili’s treatment of the narration
For al-Hurr al-Amili, therefore, even accepting the story did not mean believing that Imam al-Sajjad willingly recognised Yazid’s authority. The Imam’s words would instead have been spoken under taqiyyah, in the face of a direct threat to his life.
This is important because even the interpretation which accepts the narration gives little support to the polemical claim that Imam al-Sajjad voluntarily pledged political allegiance to Yazid.
Majlisi Accepts the Chain, But Questions the History
Allama Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi takes the discussion further in Mir’at al-‘Uqul, his commentary on al-Kafi.
Majlisi grades the narration hasan, meaning that he regards its chain of transmission as respectable. Yet he immediately raises a problem with its content.
Commenting on the words “Yazid entered Medina intending Hajj”, Majlisi writes that this is strange because the recognised historical accounts do not record Yazid coming to Medina after becoming caliph. Rather, Yazid remained in Syria until his death.
Read Majlisi’s discussion on p. 178
Continue to p. 179
Majlisi therefore suggests that the narrator may have confused Yazid with Muslim ibn Uqbah, since Muslim was the commander sent by Yazid against Medina and did meet Imam al-Sajjad.
Majlisi’s treatment is significant for an ordinary reader because it shows that Shia hadith scholarship does not work on the assumption that every detail in a narration must automatically be historical simply because the chain is respectable.
But Changing Yazid to Muslim Does Not Solve Everything
The suggested correction creates another problem.
In the narration, a Qurashi man tells the ruler:
“You are no more noble than me in Quraysh by lineage.”
That makes sense if he is speaking to Yazid, because Yazid was from the Umayyad branch of Quraysh.
Muslim ibn Uqbah was not Qurashi. He was from Banu Murra of Ghatafan.
Allama Abu’l-Hasan al-Sha‘rani later highlighted this problem in his annotations on the commentary of Allama Muhammad Salih al-Mazandarani. He noted that simply changing Yazid to Muslim does not fit the dialogue. He also wrote:
«وسفر يزيد إلى الحجاز لم ينقله أحد ولو كان حقاً لتواتر»
“No one transmitted Yazid’s journey to the Hijaz; had it been true, it would have been widely reported.”
There is also the question of Hajj. Muslim certainly entered Medina, but he did so with an army to crush a revolt. He did not arrive as a pilgrim intending to perform Hajj.
So the difficulty is bigger than one mistaken name.
Contemporary Shia Scholars Revisit the Question
Yusufi al-Gharawi Questions al-Ya‘qubi’s Version
Ayatollah Muhammad Hadi al-Yusufi al-Gharawi compares the competing historical accounts in Mawsu‘at al-Tarikh al-Islami.
He reproduces al-Ya‘qubi’s version in which Imam al-Sajjad supposedly offers a slave-like formula to Muslim ibn Uqbah, but then comments:
«ولم يتحقق اليعقوبي في النقل»
“Al-Ya‘qubi was not sufficiently accurate in transmitting [this].”
Yusufi al-Gharawi contrasts it with other accounts in which Muslim receives the Imam favourably and with the report from al-Mas‘udi that Imam al-Sajjad was excluded from the degrading pledge imposed upon Medina.
Read Yusufi al-Gharawi’s comparison of the sources
His approach is useful because it acknowledges the conflicting early material rather than simply ignoring inconvenient reports.
Al-Jalali: Neutrality Was Strategy, Not Submission
Sayyid Muhammad Reza al-Husayni al-Jalali offers one of the most useful modern discussions for understanding Imam al-Sajjad’s conduct at al-Harrah.
In Jihad al-Imam al-Sajjad, al-Jalali asks why the Imam did not join the Medinan uprising. His answer is not that the Imam had accepted Yazid’s government.
Al-Jalali argues that the movement in Medina was not led by the Ahl al-Bayt and did not recognise their right to leadership. He also points to the enormous imbalance between the forces in Medina and the Syrian army. Joining the revolt would either have led to the Imam being crushed with the rebels or would have given religious legitimacy to a movement which was not built around the leadership of the Ahl al-Bayt.
Read al-Jalali’s discussion of the Imam’s neutrality
Al-Jalali is emphatic that this neutrality must not be confused with submission:
«فلا ريب أن الإمام السجاد عليه السلام كان في نظر الناس عنصراً معارضاً للحكم والدولة، ولم يكن مستسلماً قط»
“There is no doubt that Imam al-Sajjad was, in the eyes of the people, an opponent of the government and the state, and he was never submissive.”
Read al-Jalali’s original statement
Al-Jalali then discusses Imam al-Sajjad’s encounter with Muslim ibn Uqbah. Drawing on al-Mas‘udi, he describes Muslim as initially hostile towards the Imam, but says that when Imam al-Sajjad was brought before him Muslim stood, seated him beside himself and granted his requests, including intercession for people who faced execution. No slave-like pledge appears in the account al-Jalali chooses to foreground.
Al-Jalali’s conclusion is that the Imam remained a potential target of the Umayyad authorities, but that the careful political strategy he had followed after Karbala deprived them of a justification for eliminating him. He describes that strategy as one of the reasons the Imam survived the catastrophe that overwhelmed Medina.
This makes al-Jalali particularly important to the debate. The question is not whether Imam al-Sajjad avoided a futile armed confrontation. He clearly did. The question is whether that restraint amounted to submission to Yazid. Al-Jalali’s answer is firmly no.
Al-Qurashi: The Imam Did Not Pledge to Yazid
Shaykh Baqir Sharif al-Qurashi reaches an even more direct conclusion in Hayat al-Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin.
After discussing al-Harrah and the treatment of the Imam, he states:
«ولم يبايع الإمام ليزيد»
“The Imam did not pledge allegiance to Yazid.”
Ayatollah Ja‘far Subhani similarly reconstructs the meeting with Muslim ibn Uqbah as one in which Imam al-Sajjad was treated separately and favourably, rather than being subjected to the slave-like pledge imposed on the defeated Medinans.
Ayatollah Khamenei: Restraint Should Not Be Rewritten as Humiliation
Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei discusses related reports about Imam al-Sajjad and al-Harrah in Insan-e 250 Saleh (The 250-Year-Old Man).
Khamenei is not directly grading this particular al-Kafi narration. His discussion concerns reports that portray Imam al-Sajjad as humiliating himself before Muslim ibn Uqbah.
He rejects those reports emphatically:
«من هم این روایتها را تکذیب قطعی میکنم»
“I too categorically reject these narrations.”
He later adds:
«من شک ندارم که آن روایات نادرست است»
“I have no doubt that those narrations are incorrect.”
Khamenei’s wider point closely resembles al-Jalali’s. Imam al-Sajjad did not seek an unnecessary confrontation with the Syrian army, but political restraint should not be mistaken for recognition of Umayyad legitimacy. The Imam had survived Karbala and now carried the responsibility of preserving and rebuilding the movement of the Ahl al-Bayt.
Obeidan and Sanqur Directly Challenge the Narration
Two contemporary Arabic treatments deal specifically with the Rawdat al-Kafi report.
Shaykh Muhammad al-Obeidan al-Qatifi accepts that the narration possesses a strong chain, but argues that a hadith must also be examined against its content and established history. He points to Yazid’s absence from Medina and to the historical reports that Muslim ibn Uqbah treated Imam al-Sajjad separately from the others. He therefore rejects the narration as an accurate account of events.
Read al-Obeidan’s full Arabic analysis
Shaykh Muhammad Sanqur is more categorical. He describes the narration as:
«بل لا ريب في كذبها»
“There is no doubt of its falsity.”
Sanqur argues that the report conflicts with the established fact that Yazid remained in Syria. He also rejects the attempt to replace Yazid with Muslim ibn Uqbah because Muslim was not Qurashi, did not enter Medina for Hajj, and does not fit several other details of the dialogue.
Read Sanqur’s full Arabic response
Did Different Events Become Mixed Together?
Taken together, the sources suggest a possible explanation for the strange shape of the al-Kafi report.
Several of its elements really belong to the history of al-Harrah. Muslim ibn Uqbah entered Medina. A slave-like pledge was imposed upon its people. Men who refused the terms were killed. Muslim also had a separate encounter with Imam al-Sajjad.
Yet the wider historical record places Muslim in Medina, not Yazid, while al-Mas‘udi explicitly exempts Imam al-Sajjad from the humiliating pledge.
It is therefore possible that different memories of the same crisis became combined during transmission: the pledge imposed upon Medina, the Imam’s separate meeting with Muslim, and Yazid’s position as the ruler responsible for the campaign.
That cannot be proven, and it should remain a possibility rather than a firm claim. But it would explain why parts of the narration resemble well-known events while the story as a whole does not fit the historical chronology.
So Did Imam al-Sajjad Pledge Allegiance to Yazid?
The evidence does not support the simple claim that Imam al-Sajjad voluntarily pledged allegiance to Yazid.
At the most basic level, the al-Kafi narration itself does not describe willing political loyalty. It describes a man threatened with execution who allegedly calls himself a “coerced slave”.
The larger historical problem is even more serious. The encounter depends upon Yazid personally travelling to Medina intending Hajj, but the classical historical record instead places Yazid in Syria and Muslim ibn Uqbah at the head of the army sent to Medina.
The early sources then diverge over what happened to Imam al-Sajjad. Al-Ya‘qubi preserves a slave-like formula involving the Imam, but al-Mas‘udi explicitly excludes him from the pledge imposed upon Medina, while al-Mufid preserves a separate and far more favourable meeting with Muslim ibn Uqbah.
Shia scholarship likewise contains more than one response. Al-Hurr al-Amili accepted the narration but interpreted it through taqiyyah, meaning that even on his reading there was no voluntary recognition of Yazid. Majlisi accepted the chain but openly questioned the historical setting. Later scholars including Yusufi al-Gharawi, al-Jalali, al-Qurashi, Subhani, Khamenei, al-Obeidan and Sanqur have all, in different ways, challenged the portrayal of Imam al-Sajjad as having submitted politically to the Umayyad regime.
The distinction that emerges is between restraint and submission. Imam al-Sajjad did not join the revolt of Medina, but al-Jalali’s analysis is particularly valuable here: avoiding a doomed or politically problematic uprising did not make the Imam a supporter of Yazid. He remained, in al-Jalali’s words, “an opponent of the government and the state” who “was never submissive”.
Imam al-Sajjad survived Karbala and then faced the task of preserving what remained of the line and movement of the Ahl al-Bayt. His struggle took a different form from the battlefield of Ashura, but that difference should not be rewritten as allegiance to the regime responsible for his father’s martyrdom.
On the narrower historical question, the evidence is considerably more secure. The Battle of al-Harrah is firmly attested, as is the humiliating form of allegiance imposed upon the people of Medina under Muslim ibn Uqbah. His role as Yazid’s commander in the suppression of the city is likewise well established across the historical tradition. By contrast, the specific premise required by the Rawdat al-Kafi narration, namely that Yazid himself travelled to Medina in this period, is not independently supported by the surviving historical record.
For that reason, the claim that Imam al-Sajjad personally pledged allegiance to Yazid in the manner alleged cannot be established from the available historical evidence.
References
- Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub al-Kulayni, al-Kafi, Rawdat al-Kafi, vol. 8, pp. 234–235, hadith 313.
Read the narration - Ahmad ibn Abi Ya‘qub al-Ya‘qubi, Tarikh al-Ya‘qubi, vol. 2, pp. 250–251, account of al-Harrah and Imam al-Sajjad’s meeting with Muslim ibn Uqbah.
Read the relevant passage - Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas‘udi, Muruj al-Dhahab, account of the slave-like pledge after al-Harrah and the exception of Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn (a).
- Shaykh Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Mufid, al-Irshad, account of Imam al-Sajjad’s encounter with Muslim ibn Uqbah.
- Shaykh Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Hurr al-Amili, Wasa’il al-Shia, vol. 16, p. 253, chapter concerning acknowledgement of slavery under taqiyyah.
Read the passage - Allama Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Mir’at al-‘Uqul, vol. 26, pp. 178–179, grading the narration hasan while questioning Yazid’s alleged presence in Medina.
Read p. 178
Read p. 179 - Allama Muhammad Salih al-Mazandarani, Sharh Usul al-Kafi, vol. 12, with the annotations of Allama Abu’l-Hasan al-Sha‘rani.
Read the relevant discussion - Allama Sayyid Murtada al-Askari, Ma‘alim al-Madrasatayn, vol. 3, collection of historical reports concerning the pledge imposed upon Medina.
Read the relevant section - Ayatollah Muhammad Hadi al-Yusufi al-Gharawi, Mawsu‘at al-Tarikh al-Islami, comparison of the reports concerning Imam al-Sajjad and al-Harrah.
Read the discussion - Sayyid Muhammad Reza al-Husayni al-Jalali, Jihad al-Imam al-Sajjad, Mu’assasat Dar al-Hadith al-Thaqafiyya, especially pp. 68–72, on the Imam’s neutrality at al-Harrah, his continued opposition to Umayyad rule and his encounter with Muslim ibn Uqbah.
Read p. 68
Read p. 70
Read p. 71
Read p. 72 - Shaykh Baqir Sharif al-Qurashi, Hayat al-Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, vol. 2, pp. 383–384.
Read the discussion - Ayatollah Ja‘far Subhani, Sirat al-A’immah, pp. 230–234.
Read Subhani’s account - Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Insan-e 250 Saleh (The 250-Year-Old Man), discussion of reports portraying Imam al-Sajjad as humiliating himself before Muslim ibn Uqbah.
- Shaykh Muhammad al-Obeidan al-Qatifi, “A Question Concerning a Narration in Rawdat al-Kafi”, a direct Arabic analysis of the sanad and historical content of the narration.
Read al-Obeidan’s analysis - Shaykh Muhammad Sanqur, “A Fabricated Dialogue Between al-Sajjad and Yazid”, direct Arabic critique of the narration and the proposed substitution of Muslim ibn Uqbah for Yazid.
Read Sanqur’s analysis
