During the political and military riots in Khorasan, Imam Sadiq was urged by his followers and the other Muslims to initiate an uprising against the Umayyads. The Imam refused and emphasized the lack of sincere companions. In one incident, a person from Khorasan visited the Imam in Medina and urged him for an uprising. He said that 100,000 people in Khorasan were ready to fight at the Imam’s command. The Imam surprisingly asked his servant to prepare a fire inside the furnace, and asked that person to sit inside the furnace. The man became fearful, and excused himself from the Imam. At the same time, one of the Imam’s loyal companions entered the gathering. The Imam asked him to sit inside the furnace. He followed the Imam’s order without any hesitation. Shortly after, the Imam’s follower came out of the blazing furnace completely unharmed. The Imam then asked, “How many such men do I have in Khorasan?” The man swore that there was not even a single such individual. The Imam then told him, “We will not initiate an uprising when we do not even have five such supporters.”
The main political event in the life of Imam Sadiq was the change of the government from the Umayyads to the Abbasids. Due to the tragedy of Karbala and the efforts of Imam Sajjad, Imam Baqir, and Imam Sadiq, the Muslims found the behavior of the Umayyad government contradictory to the Prophet’s teachings. They became aware of the Umayyad’s long-lasting oppression against the Prophet’s family. This led to the illegitimacy of the Umayyad government in the eyes of Muslims, and led them to love and respect the Prophet’s family. However, there were multiple claimants for the government among the Prophet’s relatives, such as Abdullah ibn Muawiyah, Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, and the Abbasids. Eventually, the Abbasids were able to use the anti-Umayyad hatred the Muslims had in their own favor to gain power and establish their own government. The Abbasids, who were proud of being the relatives of the Prophet, killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims to gain power and stabilize their own government. History proved that the Abbasids were much more tyrannical and oppressive while governing than the Umayyads.
In this situation, Imam Sadiq did not find it suitable to initiate his uprising, since Muslims who were all united against the Umayyads had diverse opinions about the next government. Therefore, any new government would not have been stabilized without horrific bloodshed, which was completely against the teachings of the Imam. The Imam instead used the golden opportunity of his time to establish the Shia as a prominent school of thought in Islam forever. As a result, the Shia school of thought was named Ja’fari, after Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq. Through the Imam’s teachings, Shias are proud of having a doctrine in every aspect of Islamic sciences and knowledge.
