Al-Tusi succeeds al-Murtada as head of Baghdad's Shi'a, 436/1044

خلافة الشيخ الطوسي للشريف المرتضى في رئاسة الشيعة، ٤٣٦هـ

c. 1044 CE · 436 AH

Baghdad → al-Karkh

On al-Sharif al-Murtada's death in 436/1044 he was succeeded by al-Tusi, though eminent former pupils of al-Mufid like al-Najashi, al-Karajaki and Abu Ya'la al-Ja'fari were still alive; by then al-Tusi had already amassed an impressive bibliography and the support of numerous Buyids and of the caliph al-Qa'im, who appointed him to the capital's most prestigious chair of theology. Heir to the great Imami libraries — Sabur ibn Ardashir's Dar al-Ilm of over 100,000 works and al-Murtada's own of nearly 80,000 — he composed some fifty books and his Karkh house was for more than a decade the virtual intellectual centre of Imamism ¹.