It is narrated from Wahid Bihbihani that he said...

It is narrated from Wahid Bihbihani that he said: Once, the new moon of Shawwal [the month following Ramadan] had been established because it had been sighted by many people (tawatur). So many people came and said that they had seen the new moon that certainty had been obtained in the matter for me [^33], so I gave the order that that day was the `Id al­Fitr [the feast marking the end of Ramadan].

One of the Akhbaris protested to me that I had not seen it myself, and that it had not been witnessed by people who had been proven to be `adil [to always act in accordance with the shari`a], and that I should therefore not have given the ruling. I said that it was mutawatir, and that this was a source of certainty for me. He then asked me in what hadith it had been narrated that tawatur was a valid proof leading to certainty.

It is also well known that some of the Akhbaris gave the command that the testimony of belief should always be written on the shroud of the corpse in this way: Isma`il yashhadu an la ilaha illa llah (Isma`il testifies that there is no god but Allah). Now the reason [they say] that the testimony is to be written in the name of Isma`il is that it is narrated in a hadith that the Imam al­Sadiq wrote in this way on the shroud of his son Isma`il.

The Akhbaris had never stopped to think that it was written thus on his shroud because his name was Isma`il; and that now, for example, that Hasan has died, they should say: "We should write his own name on the shroud, not that of Isma`il.'' Instead they argued: "This would be ijtihad, resorting to one's own opinion and relying on `aql. We are the people of obedience and submission to the words of the Imams al­Baqir and al­Sadiq, and we, for our part, will not interfere." Previous…