He is veiled from misfortunes...

He is veiled from misfortunes, immune from slips and well-protected from indecencies, well-known for forbearance and virtue from his youth. He is qualified by modesty, knowledge and excellence in his last days. The affairs of his father have been passed to him.

He remains silent during the life-time of his father, then when the extent of his father’s life comes to an end, the decree of Allah concerning him (his father) becomes fulfilled by His Will; the Will of Allah comes to him by His Love, and the extent of his father’s life reaches its end, then he passes away, and the command of Allah reaches him after him (his father), and He entrusts His religion to him, and appoints him the proof over His creatures and His custodian over His inhabited lands, and confirms him with His Spirit, and gives him His knowledge, and makes him to know his decisive speech, and commits His secret to him, and appoints him to His great affairs, and makes him to know the excellence of the expression of His knowledge, and establishes him as a sign for His creatures, and appoints him as the Proof over the people of his time, the Light for the people of His religion, and the custodian over His creatures.

Allah approves him as an Imam for them, commits His secrets to him, makes him the safeguard for His knowledge, confines His Wisdom to him, makes him a shepherd of His religion, appoints him to His great affairs, and to light through him the tracks of His way, His ordinances, and His restrictions.

When the ignorant are confused and the disputers (in matters of religion) confuse, he sets up in justice the brilliant light and the beneficial healing through the clear truth and a lucid explanation of everything which requires it by the trodden path along which his truthful fathers (as) passed.

There is no-one who ignores the right of this man of knowledge except a wicked person, no-one denies him but the misled and the misleader, and no-one bars from him except the insolent towards Allah, to Whom belong Majesty and Supremacy.”[^4] Some commentators have stated that ‘those of his time’: in the sentence: And has made him a Proof for those who receive his provisions and those of his time. Denotes the people or the provisions.