Matthew Pierce (PhD, Boston University) is Associate Professor of Religion at Centre College and Director of Centre Global. He is the author of Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shiʿism (Harvard University Press, 2016), winner of Iran’s Book of the Year Award.

Matthew Pierce has lived and studied in Egypt, Yemen, and Iran. He specialized in Islamic history, religion and sexuality, and sectarianism. Pierce has published his work in premier reference volumes, such as The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (2012) and the Encyclopedia of Islam (Brill), in edited book volumes such as Women, Leadership, and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority (Brill, 2012), and in academic journals such as the Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies. He has three chapters accepted for publication in the upcoming book, Islam in 5 Minutes (Equinox, 2026).

Ja’far is a household name in Muslim traditions and a well-known as a figure in Islamic history. For Shi’a Muslim communities, any book about Ja’far al-Sadiq will be of immediate interest and highly desired. Very few works in English exist on their imams and many English-speaking Shi’a communities deeply crave more works like this. But this will also be a book that is of interest to introductory students to Islam and general readers on Islamic history. The complexity of Ja’far’s legacy and historical context is explained in non-specialist language and the book will be of interest to Muslims of all backgrounds.

This book helps readers understand the life, legacy, and the historical context of one of the most important figures of early Islamic history. Jaʿfar was a pivotal figure who is uniquely well regarded in all major Muslim traditions, including Sunni legal thought and Sufi mystical schools. He is particularly revered in Shi’a Muslim piety, often regarded as the central organizer of Shi’a intellectual traditions. His name is familiar to history, but the details of his life are often overshadowed by the profound political shifts that were occurring in his time. This book will help readers understand the importance of Jaʿfar’s life as well as the way in which his legacy helps us better understand the entire trajectory of Islamic thought.

There are no accessible accounts of Jaʿfar’s life in English. A few academic articles exist and a dense, erudite study by Hossein Modarressi was recently published by Harvard University Press (Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law, 2022). But there are no volumes that make Jaʿfar’s complicated life and legacy readable for the general public and average Muslim in English.

Ja’far al-Sadiq is highly revered in Shi’a Muslim circles. His life is particularly celebrated every year by Shi’a Muslims at the anniversary of his death (25^th of Shawwal) which will be in mid-April in 2026.