Hasan ibn Hasan

Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Hāshimī (Arabic: أَبُو مُحَمَّد الْحَسَنِ بْنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِي ٱلْهَاشِمِي, romanized: Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Hāshimī, alias Hasan al-Mu'thannā; c. 661–715) was an Islamic scholar and theologian. He was a son of Hasan ibn Ali and Khawla bint Manzur. He was a grandson of the fourth caliph Ali (r. 656–661) and a great-grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan was a contemporary of Umayyad caliph al-Walid I.

Hasan was born in Medina in c. 661. His father Hasan ibn Ali ruled briefly as caliph in 661 and was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^[1][2] Hasan's mother Khawla bint Manzur was a daughter of Manzur ibn Zaban, the chieftain of the Banu Fazara.^[3]

His mother was Khawla bint Manzur ibn Zaban ibn Sayyar Fazari.^[4] Hasan al-Muthanna was present in the Battle of Karbala. Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Hasani, in a tradition quoted from Abu Mikhnaf, he said that his age at that time was nineteen or twenty.^[5]

On the day of Ashura,^[6][7] he fought beside Imam Husayn and was injured and was kept as captive. His maternal uncle, Asma' ibn Kharijah Fazari, saved him. He was cured in Kufa; and after recovering, he returned to Medina.^[8]

Hasan ibn Hasan's uncle Husayn ibn Ali reportedly offered him to choose either of Husayn's two daughters Sukayna and Fatima, to be his wife. Hasan, who was too shy to accept, consequently chose Fatima, as she resembled his grandmother Fatima al-Zahra.^[9] Despite his Alid lineage, Hasan maintained a functional, albeit distant, relationship with the Umayyad state, notably engaging in formal correspondence with the Caliph al-Walid I.^[10]

In Sunni biographical literature, Hasan is portrayed as an intellectual who actively rejected political and theological extremism. According to classical sources, including Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat al-Kubra, Hasan opposed the view that his lineage granted any special status or immunity.^[11][12][13]

Sunni traditions record that when questioned about the Hadith of Ghadir Khumm, Hasan rejected the assertion that Muhammad had explicitly appointed Ali as his political successor. He maintained that any such vital political appointment would have been made explicitly clear to the early Muslim community.^[14][15][16] The 14th-century hadith scholar Jamal al-Din al-Mizzi classified the chain of transmission for this narrative as highly authentic.^[17]

Sayyed Ibn Tawus writes about the merit and nobility of Hasan ibn Hasan and some other children of Imam Hasan: "These are people whose lofty position and merit all Muslims acknowledged".

According to a part of a narration reported from Imam Reza about the continuation of the offspring of Imam Hasan and Imam Husayn, it is inferred that Hasan al-Muthanna had many children and Imam Hasan's offspring continued through him and another brother of his named Zayd. It has been reported in this tradition: "Hasan ibn Ali's offspring continued through two of his sons named Zayd and Hasan. Zayd had a son whose name was Hasan. Also, Hasan al-Muthanna had sons named Abd Allah al-Mahd, Ibrahim al-Ghamr and Hasan al-Muthallath from Fatima bint Husayn; Ja'far and Da'wud from Umm al-Walad; Muhammad from Ramla bint Sa'id ibn Zayd; who continued a third generation of Imam Hasan."^[18]

Although genealogically senior, Hasan's descendants never managed to establish serious claims to the imamate (other than Zaydism and Imams of Yemen). Moreover, many later shifted to Sunnism. The Banu Qatadah and the Hashemite dynasty claim descent from him.

• Marsham, Andrew (2022). "Kinship, Dynasty, and the Umayyads". In Osti, Letizia; van Berkel, Maaike (eds.). The Historian of Islam at Work: Essays in Honor of Hugh N. Kennedy. Leiden: Brill. pp. 12–45. ISBN 978-90-04-52523-8.
• Madelung, Wilferd (1997). The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52-164696-3.