Those who performed their prayers faithfully and claimed to...

Those who performed their prayers faithfully and claimed to be believers and followers of the one true God, but who failed to enter the ark, drowned. It was not enough to keep the ten commandments in Egypt: it was necessary to follow Moses through the waters of the Red Sea. It was not enough to claim to be the children of Abraham in the first century Ate. It was essential, according to Christian Scripture, to accept and follow Jesus Christ.

There is a strange aspect of the experience of divine guides in the Bible that sets them apart. That is the experi­ence of occultation, that is, being secretly taken away from the visible world. There are three examples of this in the Bible: Genesis 5:24. `And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.' 2 Kings 2:11.

`And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.' Acts 1:9-11. `And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.' Precisely the same kind of occultation is claimed in Is­lam for the Imam of the Age.

Tabataba'i on page 154 says, `After the martyrdom of his father, al-'Imam al Mahdi (AS) had al-Ghaybat al-Sughra (the Short Occultation of al Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi [AS]) by the order of Allah and answered the questions of the Shi’as and resolved their problems through Al-Nuwwab al-Arba'ah (the Four Deputies of Imam al-'Asr (AS) who had successively attained the eminent position of being the Imam's (AS) Deputy.

The Imam (AS) then had al-Ghaybat al-Kubra (the Great Occultation of al-'Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi [AS]) until the time when he will appear by the order of Allah to administer justice in the whole world after it gets over­whelmed with injustice and oppression.' What is above all most important about the divine proof is his authority. Just as it is fatal to reject a true prophet, it is perhaps doubly fatal to reject the divine guide.

To reject the divine guide and yet cling to the prophet is to fall into legalism, hypocrisy and formalism.