Since the best course then is for God to choose and designate the leader, and since God is beneficent and all wise and would always choose the best and most expedient course, this must result in God's provision of an Imam (a leader who is guided by God).
Perhaps no aspect of the story of Shi'ia Islam is as confused as the stories relating to the Twelfth Imam and this is not surprising as this is the point in Shiia history where the events related become of a miraculous, extraordinary nature and the non-believer may be unwilling to go along with the facts as related by Shiia's. But even for the committed believer, it is difficult to decide which of the many and often contradictory versions presented in the Traditions to follow. The following version is the one that is usually presented in the books published for popular reading.
The mother of the Twelfth Imam was a Byzantine slave-girl named Narjis Khatun (or Saqui or Sawsan or Rayhana). In the more fully elaborated versions of the story she becomes the Byzantine Emperor's daughter who was informed in a vision that she would be the mother of the Mahdi. She was bought by the Tenth Imam, 'Ali al-Hadi, for his son the Eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari.
The Twelfth Imam was born in 255/868 (some sources vary by as much as five years from this date) in Samarra. He was given the same name as the prophet, Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad.
The usual miraculous accounts of his talking from the womb, etc., may be passed over to the only occasion on which he is said to have made a public appearance. This was in 260/874 when the Eleventh Imam died. It appears that none of the Shi'I notables knew of the birth of Muhammad and so they went to the Eleventh Imam's brother, Ja'far, assuming that he was now the Imam. Ja'far seemed prepared to take on this mantle and entered the house of the deceased Imam in order to lead the funeral prayers. At this juncture a young boy came forward and said: Uncle, stand back! For it is more fitting for me to lead the prayers for my father than for you.
The boy was seen no more and Shi'i tradition states that from that year he went into occultation. At Samarra, beside the gold-domed Shrine of the imams 'Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-'Askari is a mosque under which there is a cave. The end of one of the rooms of the cave is partitioned off by a gate, which is called Bab al-Ghayba (Gate of the Occultation) and was built on the instructions of the Caliph an-Nasir in 606/1209. The area behind the gate is called Hujrat al-Ghayba (Chamber of the Occultation) and in the corner of this is a well, the Bab al-Ghayba (Well of the Occultation) down which the Imam Mehdi is said to have disappeared. Shi'is gather in the rooms of the cave and pray for his return.
Imam was taken to occultation because of the vigilant and hostile surveillance of the Aabbasid caliphs that could endanger his life. As a matter of fact, even the tenth and eleventh Imams, as far as generality of their followers were concerned, had been in effective occultation. Their contact with their followers was through a network of agents called wukala (meaning agent or proxy). The contact of the Twelfth Imam with his followers was through four successive agents.
They would take messages and questions from the Shia to the Hidden Imam and would return with answers, usually verbal but sometimes written. They would also receive the monies offered by the Shi'a to the Imam as khums and zakat (religious dues).
There was- still confusion and doubt over the question of the Occultation and this was to continue for a further hundred years. It was also during this period that the first of the four 'canonical' collections of hadith (al-kafi fi 'Ilmad-Din), was being completed by alKulayni thus helping to bring about a convergence and consolidation of views among the Twelve Shi'is.
The fourth and last agent of the Hidden Imam was Abu'll-Husayn 'Ali ibn Muhammad as-Samarri. He held office for only three years and died in 329/941. These four successive agents of the Hidden Imam are each called by the Shi'is the Bab (Gate, plural Ab-wab), the Safir (Ambassador, plural Sufara) or Na'ib (Deputy, plural Nuwwab) of the Twelfth Imam.
At the time of his death, as-Samarri brought the following written message from the hidden Imam:
In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate! O'Ali ibn Muhammad as Samarri, may God magnify the reward of your brethren upon you! There are but six days separating you from death. So therefore arrange your affairs but do not appoint anyone to your position after you. For the second occultation has come and there will not now be a manifestation except by the permission of God and that after a long time has passed, and hearts have hardened and the earth become filled with tyranny. And there will come to my Shi'a those who claim to have seen me, but he who claims to have seen me before the emergence of the Sufyani and the Cry (from the heavens) is assuredly a lying imposter. And there is no power nor strength save in God the Al-mighty, the All-High. And so the Shii is passed, in 329/941, into what is known as the Greater Occultation, the period of time when there is no agent of the Hidden Imam on earth.
The Hidden Imam has a large number of titles including the following: Sahib azZamman (Lord of the Age), Sahib al-Amr (Lord of Command), al-Mahdi (the Rightly Guided One), al-Qat'm (He who will arise), al-Imam al-Muntazar (the Awaited Imam) and the Baqiyyat Allah (Remnant of God).
Birth to Hope He Will Come
