The author refers to himself throughout the book as "Da'i...

The author refers to himself throughout the book as "Da'i," that is, one who prays for or invokes a blessing upon someone, translated here as "Well-Wisher." His success is indicated by the fact that at the end of the dialogue one of his Sunni opponents and five other dignitaries in the audience publicly acknowledged their conversion to the Shi’as sect. A condition of the dialogue was that only sources acceptable to both sects would be cited.

The dialogue was held in Farsi, commonly understood in the city of Peshawar. The transcript, made by four reporters and published in the newspapers daily, was published in book form in Teheran and soon became a classic authority in the East.

The present work is based on the fourth edition, published in Teheran in 1971, the year in which Sultanu'l-Wa’adhim died at the age of 75.[^1] Although the dialogue was extemporaneous, such was the erudition of Sultanu'l-Wa’adhim Shirazi (whose name means "Prince of Preachers from Shiraz") that the transcript serves as a detailed bibliographic reference to hundreds of Sunni treatises, well known and little known, in which the claims of the Shi'ites are acknowledged.

For this reason, many of the citations refer to the author's recognized sect or school, i.e., "Sulayman Balkhi Hanafi," indicating an adherent to the Hanafite Sect, Sibt Ibn Jawzi Shafi'i, of the Shafi'ite sect, and so on. In spite of the acceptance of the thesis of this book in many parts of the Sunni world, it has also aroused hostility, and unfortunately has inspired misguided and even perverse meddling with the published authorities.

In his introduction to the fourth Persian edition, the author writes: "...it is unfortunate enough that the selfishness of some of the scholars reached the point that their commitment to their own belief overcame them, and they dared to meddle with the great works, supposing that by changing or effacing certain studies the truth would be brought out!” And since the state of him to whom God Most High has entrusted the security and preservation of the truth (namely al-Wa’adhim, who was near the end of his life at the time of writing tr.) does not allow much time for writing an explanatory introduction to this treatise, confirmation of this mischief will be indicated by one example below.

On page 301 of the third volume of the Commentary, Kashshaf, compiled under the direction of Sheikh Mustafa al-Halabi (2nd edition, 1319 A.H.