Al-Nuʿmānī was not authenticated, and al-Shujāʿī—the transmitter from him—his book al-Ghayba was not authenticated either

When a student speaks to me about the reports of the book (al-Ghayba by al-Nuʿmānī), and then wishes to cite the reports of Ibn ʿUqda contained in this book, or other reports concerning Twelver Imāmī doctrine, I tell him: adopt this principle—you will never come upon sound, early reports specifically regarding Twelver Imāmī doctrine. At that point he begins trying to exercise ijtihād to authenticate reports from within the book (al-Ghayba of al-Nuʿmānī). So I say to him: my dear friend, al-Nuʿmānī himself was not authenticated by the early Imāmīs—I mean al-Najāshī, al-Ṭūsī, and those like them who were close in time. They praised him, but they did not explicitly authenticate him, even though they explicitly authenticated others who were of lesser standing than he. And despite the importance of this book and its precedence with respect to reports on Twelver Imāmī doctrine, pay attention to the major premise here; the authentication by later scholars is another discussion altogether.

Then, after that, they also did not authenticate the transmitter and carrier of the book from al-Nuʿmānī—namely Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bajalī al-Shujāʿī—for he is neglected and unknown. Whoever entrusts his religion to unknown persons, his lot is injustice. Moreover, the mere mention of a book by al-Nuʿmānī that contains reports about the Twelve or about the Occultation does not make this book—which is in people’s hands—the very book of al-Nuʿmānī itself. For the Imāmīs have a habit of adding material to the books of their companions, as occurred with (Baṣāʾir al-Darajāt) and the book of Sulaym b. Qays, among others.

Add to this that there is no existence of this Twelver Imāmī report prior to the Occultation in the Imāmī Shiʿi mindset, nor even during the period of confusion (al-ḥayra). Thus, an observer should note that the time of fabrication and the forging of versions was the time of al-Nuʿmānī and what was near to it and followed it. Otherwise, the shaykh of al-Nuʿmānī—namely al-Kulaynī—did not succeed, in the books of his companions—despite having spent twenty years of his life searching for the reports of their Imams—in finding even a tenth of what his student al-Nuʿmānī narrated on the subject of the Twelve. Reflect upon this.

The foundation comes before discussing the branch, O student of knowledge

And it suffices for a researcher to examine the words of the eminent scholar ʿAlī Akbar Ghifārī describing the manuscripts of the book (al-Ghayba of al-Nuʿmānī), which some people place—between themselves and their Lord and the Prophet’s family—(and this is the state of its chain of transmission that has just passed before you). This, then, is the condition of its script and orthography. Ghifārī says—or the book says, published by the Ṣadūq Library publishing house:

“Its lithographic edition contained many errors: distorted handwriting, altered wording. Due to the abundance of omissions and distortions in it, what is easy became hard to transmit, and its difficulty became mountainous. A day or two may pass without the researcher finding any way to understand some of its sentences or any guide to the intended meaning. At times he may exert himself through an entire night trying to connect two sentences, or spend a full day understanding two phrases, only to return empty-handed. Rarely does one find in it a chain of transmission that has been spared distortion; rather, what predominates in its chains is entanglement through mis-vocalization and scribal corruption. It seems likely to me that Shaykh Abū al-Faraj al-Qanānī—the transmitter of the book [that is, the one who transmits the book from al-Shujāʿī]—or the one who took it from him, had poor handwriting, and the copyists were unable to extract it correctly. Hence obscurity, ambiguity, mutilation, distortion, and discrepancy became widespread in the manuscript copies of this book. Its editor—despite being a scholar—no matter how much effort he exerted, was unable to correct most of the book’s errors. As a result, this valuable work came to be abandoned and neglected; its star set behind the veil of the shoddiness of its printing and the multitude of its errors. Its sun was obscured by the clouds of obscurity in its expressions and its distortions. This led people to distance themselves from studying it and to turn away from reading it, leaving the book deserted in the corners of libraries, submerged in the hidden recesses of rooms. You see it writhing like one stricken with a serpent’s bite, and crying out like an ostrich.”

May God grant you success.

O God, send prayers and peace upon Muḥammad and upon the family of Muḥammad.

Translation of Ustadh Kadhim Al Zaydi (May Allah reward him)