ble and influential of the
doctors ordered the common folk to molest the followers of the Bab, and a
general onslaught took place. More especially when the claim of Mihdi-hood
reached the hearing of eminent divines and profound doctors they began to
make lamentation and to cry and complain from their pulpits, saying, "One
of the essentials of religion and of the authentic traditions transmitted
from the holy Imams, nay, the chief basis of the foundations of the church
of His Highness Ja'far, is the Occultation of the immaculate twelfth Imam
(upon both of them be peace). What has happened to Jabulqa? Where has
Jabulsa gone? What was the Minor Occultation? What has become of the Major
Occultation? What are the sayings of Husayn ibn Ruh, and what the
tradition of Ibn Mihriyar? What shall we make of the flight of the
Guardians and the Helpers? How shall we deal with the conquest of the East
and the West? Where is the Ass of Antichrist? When will the appearance of
the Sufyan be? Where are the signs which are in the traditions of the Holy
Family? Where is that whereon the Victorious Church is agreed? The matter
is not outside one of two alternatives: either we must repudiate the
traditions of the Holy Imams, grow wearied of the Church of Ja'far, and
account the clear indications of the Imam as disturbed dreams; or, in
accordance with the primary and subsidiary doctrines of the Faith and the
essential and explicit declarations of the most luminous Law, we must
consider the repudiation, nay, the destruction of this person as our chief
duty. If so be that we shut our eyes to these authentic traditions and
obvious doctrines universally admitted, no remnant will endure of the
fundamental basis of the Church of the immaculate Imam: we shall neither
be Sunnites, nor shall we be of the prevalent sect to continue awaiting
the promised Saint and believing in the begotten Mihdi.(12) Otherwise we
must regard as admissible the opening of the Gate of Saintship, and
consider that He Who is to arise of the family of Muhammad possesses two
signs: the first condition, Holy Lineage; the second, [that He is
divinely] fortified with brilliant verses. What can we do with these
thousand-year-old beliefs of the delivered band of _Sh_i'ites, or what
shall we say concerning their profound doctors and preeminent divines?
Were all these in error? Did they journey in the vale of transgression?
What an evidently false assertion is this! By God, this is a thi