الوصايا السبع
I place my trust in our Lord al-Ḥākim, the One without a second, and give thanks to His servant, the Riser of the Age. Praise belongs to our Lord, who manifests universals and is the goal of rational contemplation, the Originator of names and attributes, who governs all essences through His own essence—glorious be His remembrance and exalted above resemblance to originated beings. His peace, blessings, ever-increasing favors, and most noble greetings rest upon the servant He chose to guide the community and rescue it from blindness and darkness: the Riser of the Age, who speaks the explanation, guides to the reality of faith, and takes vengeance upon associators and tyrants.
Know, Unitarians of our Lord al-Ḥākim who acknowledge the Imamate of His servant, the Riser, that when the form of the Worshipped One withdrew from sight and the Riser of the Age was no longer manifest, many souls despaired because they could no longer perceive Him with their senses. The energies of many people of tawḥīd came to a halt through the absence of their instructor. They disagreed concerning the right teaching, having little experience of the newly proclaimed rule, and quarreled over lawful and forbidden things.
They asked whether the Creator—glory be to Him—had imposed, through the tongue of the Imam, obligations by which humankind must live. Some said that the community must have obligations to restrain its passions, lest its passions instead bind it. Without such duties people would cease guarding themselves, there would be less objection to wrongdoing, and each would act according to his own opinion without agreement with the others.
When I saw this and the despair that had entered their souls, and observed some of them acting by private opinion and analogy, I feared that their desire for relief from obligations would draw them into heedless ease, that their animal nature would draw them toward treating everything as permissible, including foul and shameful actions. I feared also that despair over the absence of formal obligations might carry them into the doctrine of those who recognize nothing beyond the passing world: they might imagine that without stated rules there is no wrongdoing and no sin. In the absence of prohibition, honorable conduct would then fall away, the obligation to preserve brotherhood would disappear, disorder would enter the doctrine, and the restoration of good order would become difficult.
I considered a letter received from the presence of my master, the Riser of the Age—may the best peace and greeting of his Worshipped One rest upon him. In it he instructed me to compose books and read them to people of insight, granted me authority to speak throughout the regions and islands, and commanded me to explain the sciences that had become difficult for the community and make known the duties and practices I had learned.
I therefore composed this book, the first of seven parts. These parts contain duties imposed by our Lord—glory be to Him—the Possessor of generosity and beneficence, and pronounced by His servant, the Riser of the Age. They follow one another, and reason makes clear that they are obligations. Each book identifies what must be imposed, removes what must be abolished, and refutes what ought to be refuted. If you hold fast to these teachings you will be safe from error and delivered from wrath. If you perform what your Creator has imposed, the blessings of your Guide will increase, your Caller will draw near to you, and you will recognize your origin and your return. If you violate the prescribed duties, ill will enters among you, and rain is withheld from you. I shall now explain what has been imposed concerning truthfulness of the tongue.
Know, brethren who worship our Lord, Possessor of favors and goodness, and acknowledge the Imamate of the Riser of the Age, that our Lord has imposed upon you truthfulness of the tongue and preservation of the brethren. These are followed by five further qualities, making seven qualities of tawḥīd in all. They replace the seven obligatory pillars of the law-bound religion. Whoever understands what is imposed upon him by these seven qualities will clearly distinguish truth from impossibility.
The first and greatest is truthfulness, which separates falsehood from truth. Do not be among liars. Do not be like those who said, “We have heard and obeyed,” yet whose hearts had drunk in the calf through their unbelief. The calf signifies the adversary of the Riser of the Age, who seeks to resemble him without reality or proof. You know that Islam, faith, and the other religious laws and religions cannot be complete without conditions and good deeds. How much more must this be true of the tawḥīd of our Lord, which is the ultimate goal? Whoever claims to be a believing Unitarian but does not perform the duties imposed by our Lord, speak truthfully, and do good in his actions, merely claims tawḥīd while practicing associationism and denial.
Were you to recognize the obligation of truthful speech and preservation of the brethren, you would know truth from falsehood and denial from faith. For in Arabic the word īmān means affirmation and holding something to be true. Someone who is not truthful with his tongue is more hypocritical in his heart and less certain in his belief.
Know that truthfulness is tawḥīd in its perfection, while lying is associationism and error. Whoever lies to his brother lies to his Caller; whoever lies to his Caller lies to his Imam; whoever lies to his Imam lies to our Lord—glory be to Him—and deserves His displeasure. Conversely, whoever speaks truthfully to his brother is better fitted to speak truthfully to his Caller, and then to his Imam and our Lord, thereby deserving His kindness, gifts, and favors.
Know that whoever has trained his tongue to lie has associated another with our Lord, for lying points to the accursed Iblīs. The Arabic word kadhib (“lying”) has three letters. In the numerical reckoning of letters their values are twenty for kāf, four for dhāl, and two for bāʾ, altogether twenty-six. [These signify] Iblīs and his spouse, together with twenty-four of their offspring who stand in their place. Whoever takes their side renounces our Lord and the ranks of tawḥīd.
The word rendered “truthfulness,” written sidq with sīn (س) in this esoteric spelling, has three letters: sīn is sixty, dāl is four, and qāf is one hundred. Their total is one hundred and sixty-four. Of these, ninety-nine point to the rank of Imamate. As the saying goes, “God has ninety-nine names; whoever enumerates them enters the Garden.” Likewise the Riser of the Age has ninety-nine ranks before him, knowledge of which brings a person into the reality of his Call, which encompasses its people. Sixty points to the sixty ranks of the right wing and left wing. Four points to the four exalted ranks, Dhū Maʿa, Dhū Maṣṣa, the Word, and the Gate: the Riser of the Age, the Chosen One, the Well-Pleasing One, and the Elect One. Together these are one hundred and sixty-three ranks. The remaining one indicates the unity of our Lord and knowledge of the humanity of the Station. Whoever recognizes these ranks pointing toward the Worshipped One, and practices truthfulness, rises through the degrees, attains blessings, and repudiates the adversary and falsehood.
Whoever lies to his brother or twists his brother's words has lied to our Lord, abandoned his faith, and been overcome by his devil. Whoever acts contrary to his Imam's command multiplies his sins and offenses. Beware, Unitarians, of having your hearts contradict what your tongues say to your brothers: that angers the Riser of your Age and is associationism itself. “Associationism is indeed a tremendous wrong.”
It has thus been established that truthfulness indicates knowledge of the ranks and is the intended way, the upright and praiseworthy path. Lying indicates Iblīs; it is foul and corrupt speech which leads to denial and associationism with the Worshipped One.
But, brethren, you are not obliged to tell the truth to the whole community, the people of ignorance, blindness, and darkness. They are owed no such obligation by you. Truthfulness belongs to the conduct demanded among you; those outside your circle have no corresponding claim upon you. It is obligatory among your own brethren. Whoever lies to his brother or lies for him has treated him hypocritically and suspected him. Lying is not permissible among Unitarians, because it betrays doubt in religion and weakness in certainty. Whoever among you is accustomed to it should cease. “The Messenger's duty is only to convey the message plainly.”
When one person lies to a brother, one of three blameworthy causes is ordinarily present. First, the brother may have lied to him and he seeks to repay him in kind. Then both are guilty and both incur displeasure. The one who lied first did so because he suspected his brother. His duty was to be truthful. If he discovered the brother to be the keeper of his secret and guardian of his affair, he ought to trust him; otherwise he could have remained silent rather than affirming or denying. Silence and ending the conversation are better than lying and sin.
The one who lied in retaliation has also erred: his reaction was mistaken and unjustified. If the community starts exchanging lies in retaliation, no truthful person will remain among them, but only an associating hypocrite. In such a condition there is no rightly guided person, no one with sound judgment, and no knower of the reality of tawḥīd. People ought to imitate one another in truthfulness and in the soundest opinions, not in lying and ugly deeds.
Second, one may lie to his brothers neither to repay a lie nor out of suspicion but from the habit of lying and because he treats it as permissible. He is the most wretched of the three, the greatest in guilt and most burdened with sin, because he has neither injury nor grievance to offer as his defense. How ugly is such lying! Once it is exposed, it becomes the cause of his humiliation.
No Unitarian has permission to lie to his brethren, except when an adversary is present, the matters at issue cannot safely be disclosed to him, and neither his rank nor his allegiance is known. If silence is possible, that is better. If it is not, there is no harm in altering one's words in the adversary's presence. After the devil has departed and he is alone with his brethren, he must return to truthful speech with them.
It is not necessary to speak with complete frankness concerning matters whose disclosure to adversaries would cause injury. Nevertheless, it is an excellence of character to avoid making lying a habit. Whoever grants himself permission to lie may become accustomed to it and finally employ it in every condition, for which reason the habitual practice is blameworthy.
Suppose one of you has killed a man from the outside masses. If those people question him, he need not tell them the truth, lest they establish the killing against him from his own confession and bring witnesses against him. The same applies to similar situations: if someone among you has taken property, or an adversary claims a debt without written proof or a deposit without evidence, and one is unable to repay or satisfy the claimant, denial or withholding the truth may be permitted because of the difficulty and fear of harm. We permitted such concealment only where necessity required it. But where no such difficulty or cause for injury exists, there is no objection to speaking truthfully. There must be neither harm nor reciprocal harm; perishable worldly property should not spoil one's dealings within the household of faith. Such allowance is granted only when necessity requires it.
As for the body of sincere, truthful, mutually protective Unitarian brethren who have escaped the net of accursed Iblīs, there is no conflict among them either in religion or in the things of the world. If one possesses another's money and the owner knows him to be unable to pay, he waits patiently; if the borrower asks for further help, he gives it. The indebted brother does not deny his debt because of his hardship, and the other, knowing his truthfulness, continues to excuse him.
Thus I have explained the truthfulness of the tongue that our Lord has imposed, and the permission granted in particular dealings, together with the obligations among brethren. This is the first duty, in place of prayer.
I shall now explain to you the abolition of prayer in its outward and inward senses according to the judgment of my master, the Riser of the Age—may the best greetings and peace rest upon him—and the permission to leave it, together with the true prayer imposed upon you in its place. The inward assemblies pointed toward this genuine prayer when they said:
“Believers, the world contains two opposed conditions, outward and inward. There is another wisdom, toward which indications point and which is concealed from the ignorant. It is the third division, toward which the Speakers, Foundations, their Imams, and those who follow them point: the tawḥīd of our Lord—glory be to Him.”
Concerning prayer and its abrogation in the outward and inward senses, Muslims transmit from the Speaker the statement, “Whoever abandons his prayer has disbelieved,” and, “Whoever abandons his prayer three times may die in whatever religion he wishes.” Yet we have seen many Muslims neglect prayer, sometimes repeatedly, and some who have never prayed at all, without being called unbelievers. We therefore know that the matter is contrary to the report.
All Muslims agree that the man who leads a congregation has a prayer that counts as their prayer, an action that counts as their action, and a recitation that counts as their recitation. If he commits an error in an obligatory element without which the prayer cannot be performed, he must repeat the prayer, and so must they. One man leading prayer thus stands in the place of the community, and his prayer becomes their prayer.
Our Lord—glory be to Him—spent many years before His concealment without leading people in prayer, praying over a funeral, or offer the sacrifice on the festival, even though sacrifice is joined to prayer in the command, “Pray to your Lord and sacrifice.” We saw that our Lord, after displaying these things to the world, invalidated them. We therefore learned that He had overturned the two practices, prayer and sacrifice, and granted His servants permission to abandon them, for to Him belongs the end and from Him the beginning. This is the outward meaning of the abolition of customary prayer.
As for the inward, you have heard, Unitarians, that prayer is the customary covenant, called ṣalāt because it establishes a connection (ṣila) between Respondents and the Imam, by which they meant ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. They appealed to “Prayer restrains from indecency and wrongdoing”: someone connected by covenant to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, they said, would cease to love Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, whom they interpreted as indecency and wrongdoing. Yet we have seen many who entered ʿAlī's covenant remain devoted to Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, go to Muʿāwiya, and abandon ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.
The inward assemblies also taught that the familiar covenant in our present age, before our Lord's concealment, was the link between Respondents and Him, and that indecency and wrongdoing designated Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. But countless people received our Lord's covenant during His manifestation among His servants, and did not cease loving Abū Bakr and ʿUmar or cease opposing our Lord and disobeying His command. So we learned that the reality differed from what we had heard in inward instruction.
We saw our Lord—glory be to Him—overturn the inward interpretation, for He permitted all the Nāṣibīs to display love for Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. A decree was recited publicly before witnesses, declaring, “Whoever wishes to wear a signet on the right hand or the left is not to be opposed.” We understood that He had abolished the inward just as He had abolished the outward, assigning them equal standing. We then sought what would save us from both conditions, deliver us promptly from both religious laws, and admit us into the Garden of Delight—that is, the Call of the Riser of the Age.
We learned that prayer truly imposed upon us and upon you at five times is the connection of our hearts with tawḥīd of our Lord—glory be to Him—by way of five ranks: Preceder, Follower, Grandfather, Opening, and Imagination. These are known and present in our own age. Whoever abandons this prayer three times through the three [ranks] Dhū Maʿa, Dhū Maṣṣa, and the Wing has disbelieved, apostatized, and denied, since denial of blessings is disbelief in them.
“Indecency” and “wrongdoing” are the two religious laws, outward and inward. Whoever joins his heart to the oneness of our Lord—glorified be His remembrance, with no object of worship besides Him—is restrained by that oneness from turning to the two religious laws, looking back behind him, or awaiting the lost nonexistence whose existence has never been established. This is the true prayer imposed upon you. This is also the truthful speech that has been firmly required of you.
I shall explain the six duties following truthfulness of the tongue, and abolish the six pillars that follow prayer in their outward and inward forms, establishing their realities through the success granted by our Lord—glory be to Him.
Beware, Unitarian brethren, after hearing of these duties of tawḥīd and the overturning of the obligatory pillars of religious law, that anyone among you should speak by mere personal opinion or analogy. Do not sink into despair concerning the manifestation of our Lord. Do not imagine that the religious laws are complete solely because the cycles and periods have passed, or that further weeks and ages cannot arise by the power of our Lord, the One and Overpowering.
Our Lord al-Muʿizz said, “I am the seventh of the two weeks, the one who stands over the two covenants, and there is no week after me.” The two weeks designate the outward and inward religious laws. The law of the Mahdī, Saʿīd ibn Aḥmad, is the seventh outward law; the law of his Foundation, Qaddāḥ the interpreter, is the seventh inward law. As for “the one standing over the two covenants,” he explains that the new dispensation completed after him is the manifestation of pure tawḥīd, the tawḥīd of our Lord al-Ḥākim—glory be to Him.
The words “there is no week after me” mean that no further week of religious laws, nor any week of the Imam's former form of manifestation, is completed after him. Once seven Speakers and seven Foundations had been fulfilled, the cycles of outward and inward religious laws ended. Our Lord—glory be to Him—manifested Himself in kingship and humanity, appearing to the world in visible stations and speaking face to face from the House of Imamate. He brought what contradicts and abrogates those laws, whose ordinances had remained in one condition without change. Their ordinances belong to the order of the heavenly spheres; everything that reaches a seventh term comes to an end and is followed by something new.
Consider the seven days: when their count reaches the end, it changes and returns to the first, showing that when a week ends another begins. Likewise there are seven heavens, seven earths, seven regions; a person's height is seven spans of his own hand, his breadth likewise, the span of his hand contains seven finger-measures, and his face has seven openings. There are seven Speakers and seven Foundations; between one Speaker and the next there are seven Imams. Instances of this kind are so numerous that this book cannot contain them.
Each seven in the horizons has twenty-eight letters in its Arabic names. The seven wandering heavenly bodies are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon; these amount to twenty-eight letters. The seven Speakers are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muḥammad, and Saʿīd—twenty-eight letters. The seven Foundations are Seth, Shem, Ishmael, Joshua, Simon, ʿAlī, and Qaddāḥ—again twenty-eight letters.
Before His concealment, our Lord—glory be to Him—manifested for seven years in black clothing, for seven years growing His hair long, for seven years [under the sign of] imprisoning women, and for seven years riding a she-ass. All these actions were indications of our present condition. He did not change the practices with which we were familiar, knowing our limited comprehension of events and His accustomed ways, out of mercy and goodness to us.
His black clothing indicated the occultation, and that the trial and darkness would remain over His friends and servants for seven years after His disappearance. His long hair signified the concealment of the Imam, because the head in their symbolism stands for the Imam; thus we knew that the Imam would be concealed for seven years. The confinement of women indicated the silencing of the ranks. The four sacred months signified the sanctity of the Imam. All that He signified to us we found and encountered.
By riding the she-ass He gathered the hopes of all the peoples. Had they understood their true object, Jews and Christians would have known that they were waiting for Him in the very form in which our Lord disappeared. He appeared before everyone, but they failed to know Him. The riding of the she-ass holds indications sufficient for all religious parties.
Deliverance by His will is near. Most of the ordeal has passed and only its lighter part remains. Rejoice, Unitarian brethren, and bring good tidings to your brothers. Beware of despair and impatience. Be patient, for the good end belongs to those who endure, and successive blessings to those who give thanks. May our Lord assist us and you in fulfilling the duties and establishing what is prescribed. We seek His assistance, victory, and refuge in every affair. He is the best helper and supporter.
Completed, with praise belonging to our Lord alone.