The 2nd Imam · 625–670 CE
Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba
Al-Mujtaba
الإِمَام الحَسَن المُجْتَبَى
Principled peace and forbearance
صَاحِبِ النَّاسَ بِمِثْلِ مَا تُحِبُّ أَنْ يُصَاحِبُوكَ بِهِ
Ṣāḥibi al-nāsa bi-mithli mā tuḥibbu an yuṣāḥibūka bih
“Treat people as you wish to be treated.”
Historical setting
Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba was the Prophet's elder grandson, raised in the Prophet's home and carried on his shoulders in public. Narrations describe the Prophet kissing him, declaring him among the lords of the youth of paradise, and treating him with a tenderness that everyone around him witnessed. He grew up watching the most turbulent years of early Islamic history — the first fitna, his father's decades out of power, and finally the caliphate consumed by war. When Imam Ali was assassinated in 40 AH, the people of Kufa pledged allegiance to Hasan. He became the second Imam and the political leader of a community already exhausted by conflict. The army he inherited was fractured: tribal leaders had already secretly accepted payments from Mu'awiya; officers who pledged loyalty in the morning wrote to Mu'awiya by evening; the Kufan base that had proclaimed readiness for war dissolved under the first test. Imam Hasan negotiated a treaty whose formal terms required that Mu'awiya not designate a successor and that followers of Ahl al-Bayt not be harmed. Mu'awiya broke every condition. Imam Hasan returned to Medina and spent the remaining ten years of his life teaching, giving generously, and bearing public insults from those who could not comprehend why he had not fought. He was poisoned through his wife in 50 AH at Mu'awiya's instigation. He asked that if his body could not be brought to the Prophet's grave without causing conflict, he should be buried at Baqi' — which it was. What looked like defeat was the act that preserved the household's credibility for the moment that would arrive at Karbala twenty years later.
The shared path
Imam Hasan's peace and Imam Husayn's stand belong to one moral intelligence. The goal was never personal possession of government; it was protection of truth and the community's capacity to recognise it. When battle would be consumed by internal betrayal and misrepresented as a contest for power, restraint could preserve the witness of Ahl al-Bayt. His forbearance was active mastery of anger and appetite, not approval of corruption.
Your practice
Choose one conflict. Separate the non-negotiable principle from the ego's preferred method. Offer a concrete peace that protects dignity and truth, set one clear boundary, and refuse insults even if the other person uses them.
Reflect with this Imam
- Am I prolonging a conflict because reconciliation feels like losing?
- Which principle must be protected, and which demand is only my pride?
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Source notes
The treaty and its political setting are preserved through classical historical reports whose details vary. Present agreed contours separately from disputed clauses or speeches.
Key texts from this Imam
Based on Kitab al-Irshad by Shaykh al-Mufid