The Imamiyyah’s ultimate religious end It will not be...

The Imamiyyah’s ultimate religious end It will not be possible to know the ultimate goal of a school of thought, unless its outlook on articles of faith and practical questions are understood. The Wahhabis, however, desire to understand the ultimate goal of the Shi‘ah school of thought before dealing with the position this school has adopted concerning faith and practice. This is impossible because the goals begin to flourish within the matrix of faith and practice.

It is not possible to separate one’s goals from their beliefs, but the Wahhabis work hard to fabricate false aims for the Shi‘ism and launch their attacks without having deliberated on the significance of the first and second realities mentioned above. The purport of some terms common among the Shi‘ahs I have often seen that the Wahhabis misinterpret certain expressions as bada’ , dissimulation [ taqiyyah ], inerrancy [ ismah ] and mushaf that are commonly used in the Shi‘ah culture.

So long as the meanings of these words are not made clear, there will exist no feasibility of a strife-free dialogue between the Shi‘ahs and the Wahhabis because of the profound diversity there is between the Shi‘ahs’ interpretation of the words and how the Wahhabis understand them, although these expressions are formally the same.

This may seem to be the point where the two realities of Imamate and the Twelfth Imam’s ( ‘a ) occultation should be brought up, but to make it easier for the Wahhabis to grasp the idea we moved it to stage three because it is very hard for them to perceive them at this particular stage. Now, let us take a cursory look at the issue of knowing the Imamiyyah. Previous…