Musa al-Kadhim, Arabic imam (born 745)

Musa al-Kazim was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the seventh imam in Twelver Shia Islam. Musa is often known by the title al-Kazim, apparently a reference to his patience and gentle disposition. He was born in 745 in Medina to Ja'far al-Sadiq, the sixth Shia imam, who died in 765 without publicly designating a successor to save his heir from the wrath of the Abbasid caliphs. The subsequent crisis of succession was eventually resolved in favor of al-Kazim, with a dissenting group, now known as the Isma'ilis, separating from the mainstream Shia.