The Imams of the Prophet’s Household invalidate and demolish the doctrine of occultation from within Imāmī heritage Part 3

After you have learned how the Sharīʿa and the heritage of the Ahl al-Bayt—peace be upon them—oppose the doctrine of occultation, I will further clarify this for you here through authentic narrations—according to Imāmī standards—against occultation. This is so that the scholarly conclusions may become clear to you: namely, that infallibility in individual members of the Household is not something intended by the Wise Lawgiver for the Ummah, due to the absence of any present, concrete instance of it within the community—for no less than twelve centuries. Whenever the concrete instance is absent (i.e., an infallible Household whose individuals are infallible), despite the established legal role of the Household being present within the Ummah in every age for its guidance, and despite the Sharīʿa’s opposition to and rejection of the occultation of the Household—affirming instead that they must be present and not absent—then the judgment of the Sharīʿa takes precedence over the claims of every sectarian partisan who theorizes about the Household while disregarding the scriptural texts concerning the Household’s present (not absent) role in guiding the Ummah, and likewise ignoring the statements of the Household themselves, who oppose occultation and affirm that the Household must be present in the Ummah to carry out the role of guidance.

Then the sectarian seeks to impose upon God—on the basis of an imagined rational necessity—and upon His Messenger—by selectively following ambiguous reports or obscure narrations fabricated by extremists—this doctrine of infallibility in individual members of the Household, even if no legally certain instance of it exists, affirmed by the Sharīʿa, among specified persons. Consequently, the ḥadīth of al-Thaqalayn no longer supports their claim, nor does the ḥadīth of the Ark, because these—and others—indicate nothing except a Household possessing a tangible, guiding role within the Ummah that is specific to them and not to others (such as juristic authorities). If this divinely indicated instance is not established as present, then the meanings of individual infallibility within the Household are no longer intended by the Wise Lawgiver; otherwise, the reports of the Sharīʿa would become mutually contradictory and self-negating.

For reversing the meanings and deriving individual infallibility of the Household from the two reports of al-Thaqalayn and the Ark requires fulfilling several conditions for such an argument to be coherent. The first is a definitive, legally established specification and designation of the names of the infallibles. This is absent from the Sharīʿa itself; thus, the report of the Twelve is invalid in this regard, since it was not known with certainty to the leading early followers of the Imams—among the early Imāmīs such as Zurārah, Muʾmin al-Ṭāq, Abū Baṣīr, al-Bazantī, al-Ḥaḍramī, the sons of the Imams, and others—yet it is claimed today with sectarian certainty by contemporary Imāmīs on the basis of a dark narrational heritage whose origins lie in post-occultation fabrications. Once the definitive doctrinal foundation for specifying particular individuals of the Household for obligatory following is lost, the evidentiary force of reports such as al-Thaqalayn and the Ark in proving individual infallibility for the Household is nullified.

Then there is the absence of a second necessary condition for claiming that the two reports indicate individual infallibility: namely, the continuous, manifest presence of the Household within the Ummah, so that the Ummah may cling to them themselves, not to others by proxy (such as jurists). This is a crucial element of meaning, and no rational person can claim to be acting upon the two reports of al-Thaqalayn and the Ark while being unable to point to a present, manifest Household. This is entirely absent from the claim of those who assert individual infallibility for the Household, for they have not pointed—over the course of twelve centuries—to a present, infallible Household. Thus, their claim that these reports (and others) indicate individual infallibility, in the absence of this requirement, is far-fetched and incorrect.

We then supported what precedes—regarding the Sharīʿa’s own indications toward meanings that contradict belief in individual infallibility—by citing statements from leading figures among the descendants of al-Ḥusayn—peace be upon them—so that the examiner may know that the Imāmī position does not follow the Household’s own stance regarding the infallibility that the Imāmīs found appealing for themselves on sectarian grounds. Rather, Imāmī belief in this matter follows the narrations of the extremists whom Imam al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him) himself despised and cursed on account of them. Thus, the reader and researcher comes to know that the sectarian claim—or the particular Imāmī interpretation that the reports of al-Thaqalayn and the Ark necessitate individual infallibility—applies only to those who assert it, and it is not necessarily the meaning of the two reports, nor the view of al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him) himself. Let the thoughtful examiner reflect.

This is now a third confirmation—though I have much more of this at hand—that we present from the words of Imam al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him), from within Imāmī heritage itself, through chains deemed authentic or reliable by them, opposing occultation—after you have already seen in the two previous transmissions from Imam al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him) that the Imam must be present and manifest within the Ummah, to whom it turns in matters of lawful and unlawful, and that this designates him as an Imam fulfilling this role, which contradicts and nullifies occultation.

Al-Kulaynī narrates—through a chain he considered authentic, and which al-Majlisī graded as sound and reliable—from Isḥāq ibn ʿAmmār, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (peace be upon him), who said: I heard him say:

“The earth is never without an Imam, so that if the believers add something, he returns them from it, and if they fall short in something, he completes it for them.”
[Uṣūl al-Kāfī 1/178]

Again, pardon us, O Abū ʿAbd Allāh—may God’s blessings be upon you in all the worlds—for the Imāmīs rebut your words:

For the earth has indeed been without the Imam who himself corrects what the believers add and completes what they omit! They distorted and altered the meaning and said instead: the earth can be without that Imam, and those who correct the believers’ excesses are others besides the Imam—the jurists; and those who complete what the believers omit are others besides the Imam—the jurists. Thus, these distorters became opponents of Imam al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him), and they will continue to wander astray so long as the dark Imāmī heritage leads them, causing them to live with various forms of cognitive dissonance—since it is a patchwork mixture of extremist narrations whose transmitters manipulate and alter their wording, resulting in the corruption of those narrations and stripping them of any epistemic credibility that a rational person could rely upon for salvation. Meanwhile, the Household is absent, and no Imāmī knows where these conflicting obscurities of narration are leading him.

It remains that the guidance of the Household, and the meanings of misguidance negated by reports such as al-Thaqalayn and the Ark, have meanings other than what the Imāmīs imagined and reduced to individual infallibility. They then remained for twelve centuries without an infallible, yet they do not regard themselves as misguided without a present infallible! Here, whether the Imāmī concedes that the two reports (and others) indicate meanings of guidance and removal of misguidance that do not necessitate individual infallibility within the Household, or he does not concede it, he is empty-handed with respect to any concrete instance supporting his claim of guidance through individually infallible members of the Household. He is likewise empty-handed in realizing the practical meaning of the two reports within the Ummah, as the reports have become hollow in their call to cling to the Household, and hollow in deriving guidance from the Household themselves.

Moreover, one who does not accept the second path—i.e., guidance and removal of misguidance without individual infallibility—from the reports of al-Thaqalayn and the Ark suffers no harm from his refusal with regard to the sound conclusion and the Sharīʿa’s intended meaning from the two reports; nor does his refusal negate the fact that guidance from the Household is possible without individual infallibility in their members in every age. The irony is that such a refuser then falls into contradiction when he reads jurists—whom he claims to be deputies of the infallible—arguing by their consensus, while the partisan dismisses the lack of any consensus of the Household, the leading descendants of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn—peace be upon them—as a binding, infallible proof. Among the contradictions of the partisan is that he accepts as a proof for the Ummah a jurist who guides to the truth as a deputy of the infallible—even though disbelief, lying, or misguidance may be possible for that jurist—in order to dismiss the statements of other Imams of the Household on the grounds that such faults were possible for individual members of the Household as well. If the partisan then excuses such faults for the jurist, the same excuse would have sufficed him regarding the statements of others.

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)