Hasan al-Askari

Hasan ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ( 846 – 874) was the 11th Imam of Twelver Shia Islam. He was also called Abu Muhammad and Ibn al-Ridha, and is generally known as al-Askari (Askar being the word for military) for the city (Samarra) he had to live in was a garrison town. He was the eleventh Shia Imam after his father Ali al-Hadi and lived under house arrest in Samarra, especially since it was known that the Shia were looking forward to his son, Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Imam, who was destined to remove injustice from the world. Al-Askari married Narjis Khatun and was kept in house arrest or prison most of his life until, according to some Shia sources, he was poisoned at the age of 28 at the instigation of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tamid and was buried in Samarra.