Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Hādī (Arabic: أبو جعفر محمد بن علي الهادي) was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the son of Ali al-Hadi (d. 868) and the brother of Hasan al-Askari (d. 874), the tenth and eleventh Imams in Twelver Shia, respectively.
Some expected him to be the next Imam but he predeceased his father Ali al-Hadi (d. 868), who was kept in Samarra under close surveillance by the Abbasids until his death in 868 CE.
[5] This was apparently an act of defiance to al-Askari,[6] who had sided with his father al-Hadi when he excommunicated his erstwhile representative Faris for embezzling religious dues and openly inciting against him.
[8][9] Thus they turned to the offspring of Muhammad,[9] or considered him to be the Mahdi,[10][9] the messianic figure in Islam to (re)appear at the end of times to eradicate injustice and evil.
[14] On 7 July 2016, at least 40 people were killed and over 74 injured after a group of attackers stormed the shrine of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Hadi.
They attacked Shia pilgrims celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.