مكاتبة الشيخ أبي المعالي
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, through the ranks of the Qāʾim of the Religion.
I have written—may God prolong the life of the good shaykh and his brethren, preserving their service to religion and its guiding signs. May He make nearness to His people the most exalted of the shaykh's acquisitions and the noblest of his aims, and grant to him and them purity of soul, free from what befell the man whose heart was made sick by Satan's breath, his deceit and his insolence. For he has yielded to the world in his actions and ordinances, and Satan has drawn him into the abyss of fantasies, gaining possession of his reins and seizing his very being.
Your letter reached us—may God perpetuate your guardianship—revealing the purity of your soul and its inner nature. I gave thanks to God, the Giver, Master of Resurrection and Reckoning, for the beautiful protection and safeguard that He has bestowed upon me in your community, and I implored Him humbly to guide everyone who seeks the path of salvation through keeping the obligatory practices of religion and fulfilling the trust.
As for what you said—may God prolong your protection—about the sorrow of not seeing one another and being present together: through God's grace we converse with each other in the nearness of our souls and the sincerity of our intentions, despite the distance, through what hearts and breasts conceal. The times themselves have denied us meeting, because of our bitter straits, and those whom we fear because of their malicious accusations and oppression. Each day we stand on the edge of an expulsion and an expected insult from them.
In this time of concealment we have no person upon whom to rely, nor any refuge except God and acquiescence and submission to Him. The nāṣibīs, the openly hostile religious opponents, have shown us more gentleness and mercy than those who profess to be believers. Among the people of opposing creeds we live secure and tranquil; among those claiming faith we are apprehensive and afraid. They have their excuses for themselves, and we, in a certain respect, excuse them, although in the eyes of the people of truth they are blameworthy.
Let the pure shaykh make his mind supple in reflection and seek the springs of his thoughts through the outpouring of wisdom. Let his thought return to him, that by it he may glimpse what lies hidden from the seeker at the beginning and end of his journey. When those springs of reflection are stopped and the mind no longer engages with its ideas, it produces contradictory speech and claims to which rational understanding bears no witness. What it expresses then comes from outside the kingly soul and inclines toward the natural realm. That is a lesson for others, and it speaks about the man who has strayed from the commands of truth and accepted for himself the destructive depths of base conditions.
Let the pure shaykh remember this, so that the hearts of his relatives and family may turn away from such error, and let him guard them from the pasture of folly in the hope of the intercession of the Guide of Nations.
Let the pure shaykh consider the full radiance of the heavenly stars of the Gates (al-nujūm al-bābāniyya), their perfect splendor in shining lights, and their brilliance at their manifestation through the help of the people of obedience and the failure of the people of opposition.
The winds of the Qarmaṭian apostasy have blown; its arrows have flown, its lightning has flashed, and the course of its rising and setting has become plain to those who observe it.
The time has come and the fires of punishment blaze. Where can the people of the Book go astray in their darkness? Where can they flee on the Day of Presentation and Reckoning? The riding camels of the Resurrection have been set on their journey, driven by their camel-driver; the moons of the Resurrection have risen, drawing their light from the suns of the Guiding Qāʾim and Imam. Very soon, by God, the nations will be brought to stand before Hell, and they shall be asked about their neglect of the counsels and signs of truth and of the straight path.
Is there not a warning in these tidings for anyone possessing understanding, that he may distinguish his own pure soul from the person whom despair has driven away from accepting the prohibition and command, whose intellect has become diseased and whose patience is small? Will the one who has rebelled against the truth not awaken before the coverings are lifted and the Night of Decree appears—before he loses hope of the Guardian of Truth, Imam of time and age, and before those who have become Satan's followers, pretended to falsehood, and ruined their religion and worldly life through the malice, fraud, and treachery that they have received into themselves are exposed?
Such a man promises everyone who has been deceived by him phantoms of lying and intimidation, and tempts them with his fabrications, which will vanish and perish. He is like the calf of the Children of Israel in former times; he is no less false or divisive. He has burdened himself with the sins of those in the community whom he led away from the truth by his foolish fictions, burned by his fire, turned their insight away from truth, and drowned in the ocean of his errors. Will those who have been thrust toward destruction not wake up and perceive the danger already approaching them, toward which they travel?
Give this counsel, excellent shaykh, to everyone who seeks your advice in religion. Accept the repentance of whoever seeks pardon once you have established the sincerity of his speech and his conviction. Be gentle with the community in what you say and address to them. Do not be harsh toward them after showing them the pure truth and the right course; do not say, 'Thus is it written in the book.' For to the Guardian of the Command and the Truth belong severing and joining, breaking and mending, compelling and freeing necks. His words tear down the veil of falsehood by the pure truth and make clear the final return; their words are sharper than keen-edged blades, striking necks and cutting down positions of authority.†7
Be happy, pure shaykh, in what has come to your court and home. Seize this chance of an age bearing witness to how the Guardian of Truth exposes the scandals and misdeeds of his enemies and yours. Peace upon you, upon my brethren who are yours, your cousins and your relatives.
Praise be to God, who is beyond even the transcendence ascribed to creatures and originated beings; holy beyond being reached, even if the understanding of the worlds should grasp some subtle forms of worship. Only confession of incapacity, acceptance, submission, and obedience to the Guardian of the Age and his appointed ranks remain. Thanks be to the Guardian, the Intellect, the Qāʾim publicly designated before witnesses from among the worlds to command and prohibit in the realities of religions. He suffices His weak servant al-Muqtanā on the day when the pretenders' ties of kinship are broken, and victory belongs to the truthful and trustworthy.
Written in the twenty-sixth year of the Qāʾim over souls, with their acquired crimes.
Knowledge of the House of ʿAbd Allāh has grown distant from us; their names and news have disappeared, and they have ceased mentioning us, while we continue to wait for reports and traces of them. May God grant them enduring steadfastness and not forget them in His mercy on the Day of Presentation and the appointed Hour. May He provide from among them successors to the shaykhs who preceded them, the people of submission and obedience. They should inform us who among them now remains upon the right way, who is certain in his preservation of the Wisdom, and who holds firm to the realities of religion. We and those with us extend to you all full peace and the finest greetings.
Completed; praise be to our Lord alone, and thanks to the Qāʾim of the Age, His servant.
TEXTUAL ENDNOTES — EPISTLE 110
†7. Printed p. 803 has martial metaphors, including ضرب الأعناق. The exact terminal noun is difficult; the violent polemic is unmistakable, while the exact force of the final expression قطع المناصب remains uncertain.