AD 941

Occultation (Islam)

End of the Minor Occultation and beginning of the Major Occultation in Twelver tradition

The reported final message named no successor. It told the intermediary that he would be dead in six days and must appoint no one.

The year is 941, not 939

The date 939 appears in some derivative references but conflicts with the standard chronology. Twelver tradition places the end of the Minor Occultation in 329 AH, a year overlapping 940 and 941, which scholarship prints as 329/940–41 or simply 941.

In that tradition, Ali ibn Muhammad al-Samarri, the last recognized intermediary of the Hidden Imam, produced a decree in 329 AH saying he would die in six days and must appoint no successor.

Al-Samarri died that year, and the succession of official intermediaries ended.

An office that simply stopped

The cessation of regular communication through an authorized intermediary became the boundary between the Minor and Major Occultations in Twelver doctrine.

This was not a newly observed physical disappearance: it was the end of the claimed intermediary system for an Imam already believed to be hidden.

The precise formulation is that no regular authorized intermediary remained — later Twelver devotion includes private encounter traditions without recognizing a new official deputy.

How the chain was assembled

Twelver tradition retrospectively recognizes four authorized mediators — Uthman ibn Sa'id, Muhammad ibn Uthman, Husayn ibn Ruh and Ali al-Samarri — spanning 260 to 329 AH, about seventy years.

That division into Minor and Major Occultations, and the canonical chain of four, was systematized retrospectively.

Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that whether Hasan al-Askari left a son remains disputed, and that traditional accounts of the four deputies' activities are partly historically unsound.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Traditional date

How this was checked

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Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at 0941.

What the sources leave uncertain

The event is principally a claim of Twelver religious tradition. Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that whether Hasan al-Askari left a son remains disputed and that traditional accounts of the four deputies' activities are partly historically unsound.
The Islamic year 329 AH overlaps 940–941 CE and scholarship consequently prints 329/940–41 or simply 941. The supplied date 939 is not supported.
The exact reported decree and its six-day prediction survive in later Twelver sources; they should be attributed rather than narrated as independently verified correspondence.
The standard division into a Minor and Major Occultation and the canonical chain of four deputies became systematized retrospectively.