رسالة الواصل إلى الجبل الأنور
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, through the ranks of the Qāʾim of the Religion.
Your letter has arrived, my dear and cherished brother ʿAlī—may God prolong your remaining life in His obedience, and preserve your religion and your worldly affairs. It came by the hand of the good brother Abū al-Ḥasan al-Maḥallī, may God raise his rank. We read it and understood it, and its account of your devotion and fidelity was clear. Were it not that his presence among us was prevented by our need for concealment, the narrowing of our circumstances, the length and breadth of the routes and country, the confusion of affairs, and the bitterness of this wretched life—with few supporters and friends, and without a kindly neighbor or companion—and were it not that the roads and passages have become inaccessible to us, while we stand with our families on the edge of a precipice of calamities and ruin, we would have called you to visit. We excuse their conduct, knowing the difference between the position of the borrower and that of the owner†4. I mention these conditions only so that neither you nor anyone else will say that we have kept you at a distance, neglected your circumstances, and failed to invite you.
In your letter you gave us no clear account of the condition of your relatives and family. Nor did you mention the matters about the community that we await: their security, tranquility, and well-being.
We had previously received word that a group had mounted the paths of wrongdoing, sharpened the staff of defiance, and openly manifested folly and rebellion. They had attached themselves to forbidden things, following the practices of the Ṭaymūs†5 and Satan, and competed in the error they had been taught, behaving like the offspring of devils.
Read this letter of mine to the assembled shaykhs and brethren, so that they may ponder what is written in it and separate themselves from whoever has become notorious for apostasy and departed from the practices of the people of religion. Identify them by their beliefs and make their distinguishing marks known. The time of the pretenders and people of error has come to an end; the roof of falsehood has fallen upon the unhappy apostates.
Where can they wander? Where can the people of ruin go? The herald of the Resurrection has sounded his warning; the Hereafter has shone forth with its terrors, to bring recompense upon those who followed perversity, violated their pledges, and persisted in obstinate opposition. In every age there have been such base people: they have loaded themselves with sins in the time of the Resurrection, interrupted the work of religion, and turned away from the truth after being made acquainted with the realities entrusted to them. Their recompense and punishment will be doubled for their lowest deeds and remotest ambitions.
May God destroy them by their own acts and strip from them the covering of His protection, just as they deceived the world and lied against the people of religion, describing them in the foulest terms. God will judge them justly and show them no mercy, for they gave the people of the Sunni faction a means of attacking the people of truth through the deeds they invented and the forbidden acts they permitted.
Whoever among you acknowledges one of these people as child, parent, or brother—male or female—is accursed, has broken the covenant of religion, and stands outside its great proofs and signs.†6 Recognize them, people of discretion and guardianship, and separate from them in life and death.
The age of the pretenders is finished; their snares have been exposed to the people of truth by their promotion of forbidden practices. The argument has now been made clear concerning both parties. The people of truth have prevailed through their obedience; the covenant-breakers have been marked by the rancor and fraud they carried in their hearts against the religion.
Will you not learn, people of rebellion and covenant-breaking? Will you not desist, people of apostasy and the offspring of wickedness? How many times have the blows of proof and revelation struck your hearts! Yet they are as hard rocks, or as salt ground unable to bring forth wholesome plants.
Alas for those who, after the truth was explained and the Wisdom preserved, after joining the Inhabited House and entering through the Gate of Mercy, were turned about by deceiving pretenders. Their hearts are blacker than the darkest night and harder than solid rock. The waters of the Nile do not moisten them, nor do they feel the pleasure of coolness. Their ears are deaf to the truth; they hear neither its summons nor the voice of thunder. Their eyes are covered against remembrance and blinded by the arrival of ill fortune and the absence of good fortune.
People! The warner of the Resurrection has discharged his warning and openly proclaimed the truth. The Greatest Imam has established the proof against all creation. You scattered congregation, you deniers and breakers of the covenant: only two things brought us together—affirming the unity of the Creator, exalted is He, and obeying the Guardian of the Age with genuine faith. By these two qualities we find deliverance from the tricks of Satan. When you turned back from the ordinances of the Guiding Qāʾim and Imam, you broke the very profession of divine unity that you claimed; there is no true unity without obedience to the commands of the Qāʾim of the Age. Following this betrayal of truth, you are no longer children or brothers to us.
What remains after this warning and explanation except error and ruin? We invited you to the truth and prayed on your behalf, but you would not answer. May God make the breakers of the covenant, the enemies of religion, a harvest for the swords of His guardians, who devote themselves to obedience and rely on Him in ease and hardship.
We had appointed many shaykhs in the towns, people of strength in religion, steadiness and sound judgment, and had permitted them to accept the repentance of anyone who submitted and requested pardon, acknowledging that he had abandoned licentiousness, iniquity and error. All of this was to establish the proof before the worlds and silence the unjust adversary, lest they say: 'No warner or messenger came to us; we knew neither guide nor proof of the truth.'
The proof has cut off the excuses of mankind. The breaking of the fast has approached, and the month of fasting has passed; the earth shines in the light of the Qāʾim, the Guiding Imam. Let none of you say, 'You say this at every time and in every year.' For the meaning in the order of origination is this: his manifestation is like his concealment, and his concealment like his manifestation—especially now that the signs of his exalted station have appeared. I have already conveyed to you what is necessary by way of justification and warning, and set it down for you in the Admonition and the Reminder. Nothing remains incumbent upon a truthful messenger except painstaking delivery of his message. God gives success to whoever accepts and submits until the Day of Recompense and Return.
Praise be to God, the Exalted, the destroyer of ages, the changer of eternity, the Originator of the ancient Intellect, the Cause of causes. Peace upon the Intellect of the worlds, the Imam of mankind who summons to the best of deeds. He is the sufficiency of His weak servant al-Muqtanā on the day when none has protection except whoever holds fast to the Qāʾim, the Guiding Imam, rectifier of religions and overturner of states, who takes vengeance upon those who associate partners, act unjustly, and depart from truth and justice.
Written in Ramaḍān, in the twenty-sixth year of the Qāʾim. Peace.
Completed; praise be to our Lord alone, and thanks to the Qāʾim of the Age, His servant.
TEXTUAL ENDNOTES — EPISTLE 109
†4. Printed p. 796 reads موضع المستعير ومنزلة المالك. The contrast of borrower and owner is literal; its historical implication is not defined by the sentence itself. †5. Printed p. 797 reads طيموس. It is left as Ṭaymūs without conjectural identification. †6. Printed p. 797 names a child, parent, and sibling of either sex. The translation records the author’s threat; its social enforcement cannot be inferred from this text alone.