When he had finished reading the letter...

When he had finished reading the letter, I said: "Commander of the faithful, would you continue your speech from the point which you reached?" He answered: "In no way, in no way. It was like foam on the camel's mouth (shiqshiqa) as it opens its mouth to bellow and then falls silent." ************* [Mas'ada b. Sadaqa reported: I heard Abu 'Abd A11ah Ja'far b. Muhammad (al-Sadiq), peace be on them, say:] The Commander of the faithful, peace be on him, addressed the people at Kufa.

He praised and glorified God. Then he said: "I am the master of the white-haired men and in me is an example of what happened to Job. God will gather my family for me just like He gathered his family for Jacob. That will be when the globe turns around - and you have been told - and it goes astray and is destroyed. Indeed, therefore before that put on the garment of endurance and acknowledge your sins to God. You have cast off your sanctity, you have put out your torches.

You entrusted your guidance to those who do not even have control over themselves. You have neither ear nor eye, which is (even) weak. By God, the seeker and the sought are thus.

If you had not forsaken your task, abandoned support for the truth which is in your midst, and become weak through the weakening power of the false, one who is not like you would not have taken courage at you, and the one who becomes strong against you would not have become strong and (been able) to destroy your obedience and take it away from those of you who had it. You went astray like the children of Israel went astray in the time of Moses.

I speak truly (when I say): Indeed your being astray will be doubled for you after me through your persecution of my sons; it will double the loss which the children of Israel suffered. If you have drank and filled yourselves with the illnesses brought about by the authority of the tree cursed in the Qur'an, you have gathered with the one who calls croakingly (to you) to go astray and have run to answer the false.

You have betrayed the one who summons (you) to the truth; you have cut yourselves off from those close to the men who fought (for the Prophet) at Badr and you have joined those of the sons of war who are furthest away (from the Muslims who fought at Badr). Indeed if what they had possessed had melted away, the test for punishment would have been near, the covering would have been revealed and the period would have been brought to an end. Then the threat (of hell) would be near.