The extraordinary significance of this issue has set the...

The extraordinary significance of this issue has set the Imamiyyah up to taking a harsh stand against the Extremism and its beliefs and write myriads of books in which they have rejected the extremists’ ideas and excommunicated the extremists, because the Ghulat have not separated the station of Lordship from that of worship, but believe in unification [ ittihad ] and incarnation [ hulūl ] .

As regards Prophecy, the Imamiyyah have established their belief upon the Qur’anic texts, maintaining that the Prophet’s (S) mission is the last, and his superiority over all definite. This is something the extremists do not accept. Rather, they consider others superior to the Prophet (S). The Imamiyyah are of the opinion that no other Prophet (S) has come after Muhammad (S) nor will ever come. Also, anyone who denies that Prophecy ends with Muhammad (S) is a disbeliever.

This belief surely stems from the Qur’an. The realities of the divine injunctions and laws in the Imamiyyah school of thought To understand these realities, they should be sequenced as we have arranged, because until the first reality is not understood, the second one cannot be attained.

The former reality concentrates on theory, the latter on practice; the first reality talks about intellectual reasoning and the second speaks about corporeal acts: belief in the first issue leads to practice in the second one.

Having first proved that there is no transcendental beloved or a creator or one who regulates the affairs except Allah, and having established the fact that law-making is exclusively His, we proceed to the second issue and say that legislation should be adduced from the Qur’an and from the revelation [ wahy ]; since the Prophet’s (S) Sunnah originates from the revelation, it is a source of legislation If you refer to the Shi‘ah juridical books, you will see that the precepts and verdicts are all documentary: they have the Qur’an or the true Sunnah as their proof and support, intend the external meaning of the orders, flee from the esoteric and interpretive implications, sentence to apostasy anyone who interprets [ ta’wil ] the religious injunctions, does not feel obliged to observe the rules and washes his hands of acting according to the shari‘ah laws.

The Shi‘ahs maintain that however important belief may be, it is not enough to make one needless of the religious injunctions and laws.