“ 709 \n This short excerpt seems to sum up the early...

“ 709 \n This short excerpt seems to sum up the early Imamite concept as concerns the social application of jurisprudence: as long as the imam remains in hiding, it is impossible for the Law to function correctly on the collective level. There is no one but the hidden imam who, once he comes back, can carry out all the precepts applicable to the collective religious life.

The Imamites could not have been ignorant of the inevitable implications of a complete Occultation: without the designation of the imam, no chosen delegate could be named; without the delegate, there could be no “leader” or “guide” for collective prayer, which, therefore, becomes “suspended.” Nothing in the early corpus of the imams suggests a remedy for such a situation.

The last letter of the twelfth imam will cut to the quick: not only will there not be a “representative,” but no one but an impostor will claim to be one. In the face of this information, we might wonder-and here we return to our original question-if the complete Occultation did not bring about the end of the collective dimension of the Imamite doctrine, and if this doctrine did not become, from that point on, a completely interiorized, individualized, initiatory kind of “religion.

” \n In addition to the information examined previously, there are also comments by the imams about the Occultation that appear to corroborate our idea here.

The fourth imam, ‘Ali Zayn al-‘Abidi’n -asws , after saying that the Imamate belongs to al-Husayn’s descendents and that the Mahdi -asws ‘ will have two Occultations, states: ”\u00a0 As far as the [second] Occultation is concerned, its duration will be prolonged until the majority of those who profess this doctrine go back on their belief; at that time the only one who will remain steadfast will be he whose certainty [yaqin] is strong [or “strengthened”] and whose knowledge [ma’rifa] is healthy [or “restored”], he who finds in himself no difficulty accepting what we [the imams] proclaim, he who salutes us “people of the house” [of the Prophet].” 710 The conditions required to be a true faithful believer during the period of the major Occultation are thus 10’ie (walaya) for the imams, absolute “certainty” about the truth of their teachings, and knowledge, which, in the technical terminology of the imams means knowledge of the initiatory secrets of the doctrine.

These conditions point only to an interior and individual religious spirituality.