Editing Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (section)

===Circle of Scholarship===
Jaʿfar al-Sadiq acquired a number of followers and supporters, most (though not all) of Shiʿite persuasion. He is respected by the Sunnis as a transmitter of [[Hadith]] and a jurist (faqih), while the Shiʿites, who consider him an imam and as such infallible, record his sayings and actions in works of Hadith and jurisprudence (feqh, q.v.). The Ismaʿili jurist Qazi Abu Hanifa Noʿman b. Muhammad Qayrawani (d. 363/974), has preserved a number of Jaʿfar al-Sadiq’s legal opinions, presenting them as authoritative expositions of the Islamic religious law.<ref>shariʿa; see, e.g., Daʾaʾem I, p. 4</ref> In [[imami]] Shiʿite writings, his legal dicta constitute the most important source of imami law. Indeed, imami legal doctrine is called al-Madhhab al-Jaʿfari by both Imamis and Sunnis in recognition of his legal authority. A number of works are attributed to him, though none of these can be securely described as authored by Jaʿfar al-Sadiq. Included in this list is a Quran commentary (tafsir), a work on divination (Ketab al-jafr), various versions of his will, and a number of collections of legal dicta <ref>Sezgin, I, pp. 528-32, IV, pp. 128-31, VII, pp. 323-24; ʿAmeli, IV/2, pp. 52 ff.; Aga Bozorg Tehrani, III, p. 121, XXI, pp. 110-11</ref>. In addition to these, there are many reports attributed to him in the early Shiʿite Hadith collections; he features as a central source of imami doctrine, for example, in Muhammad b. Yaʿqub Kolayni’s al-Kafi.

Jaʿfar al-Sadiq’s circle of followers included two of the most important imami theologians, namely, Abu Muhammad Hesham b. Hakam (d. 179/796) and Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Noʿman (d. after 183/799). Hesham proposed a number of doctrines that later became orthodox imami theology, including the rational necessity of the divinely guided imam in every age to teach and lead God’s community. Muhammad b. Noʿman (nicknamed Shaytan al-Taq) held anthropomorphist doctrines, which on occasions clashed with later imami theology. <ref>influenced as it was by [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mutazilah Moʿtazelite] thought; for their works see Ebn al-Nadim, pp. 223-24, tr. pp. 437-38</ref>

Jaʿfar al-Sadiq is also recorded as having taught with, or studied under Abu Hanifa and Malek b. Anas, two of the eponyms of the Sunni legal schools (the [[Hanafiya]] and the [[Malekiya]] respectively). More is recorded concerning the relationship between Abu Hanifa and Jaʿfar al-Sadiq. Shiʿite sources portray Jaʿfar al-Sadiq as consistently humbling Abu Hanifa, pointing out defects in his reasoning and his incompetence in legal argument.<ref>see, e.g., Ebn Babawayh, ʿElal al-Shariʿa I, p. 86</ref> They clearly arose out of a Shiʿi-Sunni (and more specifically Shiʿi-Hanafi) polemic, though they may reflect the character of the relationship between the two jurists.