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The Twelve Imams (Arabic: ٱلْأَئِمَّة ٱلْٱثْنَا عَشَر, al-ʾAʾimmah al-ʾIthnā ʿAšar; Persian: دوازده امام, Davâzdah Emâm) are the spiritual and political successors to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Twelver branch of Shia Islam, including that of the Alawite and Alevi.
The line of imams of the Nizari Ismaili Shia Muslims (also known as the Agha-khani Ismailis in South and Central Asia) continues to their present living 49th hereditary imam, Aga Khan IV (son of Prince Aly Khan). They are the only Shia Muslim community today led by a present and living (Hazir wa Mawjud) imam. [31]
In Shia Islam, the figure of imam dominates the belief system. [9] Necessarily a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, [10] imam is the supreme leader that combines both temporal and religious authorities, [11] for the two were combined in Muhammad. [12] Various Shia sects, however, disagreed over the identity of these imams. [10]
The Shia scholars of the fourth and the fifth centuries of the Islamic calendar defined the infallibility of Muḥammad and the Twelve Imams in an increasingly stringent form until the doctrine came to exclude their commission of any sin or inadvertent error, either before or after they assumed office.
Sanctuary of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran, is a complex which contains the mausoleum of Ali al-Rida, the 8th Imam in Shia Islam. 25 Million Shias visiting the shrine each year. [80] After Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of Islam, the cities of Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad and Qom are the most revered by Shīʿa Muslims.
Hafizi Ismaili Muslims claimed that al-Amir died without an heir and was succeeded as Caliph and Imam by his cousin al-Hafiz. The Musta'li split into the Hafizi, who accepted him and his successors as an Imam , and the Tayyibi , who believed that al-Amir's purported son At-Tayyib was the rightful Imam and had gone into occultation.
Shi‘a Islam, also known as Shi‘ite Islam or Shia, is the second largest branch of Islam after Sunni Islam.Shias adhere to the teachings of Muhammad and the religious guidance of his family (who are referred to as the Ahl al-Bayt) or his descendants known as Shia Imams.
According to Twelver Shia doctrine, he is the current Imam and the promised Mahdi, a messianic figure who will return with the prophet Isa . He will reestablish the rightful governance of Islam and establish justice and peace in the earth. [74]