(21:49) .

(21:49) .'”4 Of the other key measures 'Askarīyān (A.S) took in that period was to provide intellectual preparation for Shi'ites for entering “the age of occultation”; among whose procedures were their hadiths about approaching occultation and their good news about the birth of Allah's authority (the promised Mahdi).5 Other activities consisted of referring the Shi'ites to Imam's deputies6 and validating some of jurisprudential books and hadith references 7 and finally reducing their direct contacts with Shi'ites, until even in Samarra, they would answer Shi'ites' problems and issues by letter or their deputies and doing so, they prepared the Shi'ites to adapt themselves to conditions of the age of occultation and also indirect contact with Imam (A.S).

8 As we will see later, this was the policy that the Twelfth Imam (A.S) himself later on adopted during the age of “minor occultation” and gradually prepared Shi'ites for the “greater occultation”. References [^1]: Muhammad b. Ma'ruf Hilalī said: “I went Hirah to Ja'far b. Sadiq [Imam Sadiq] (A.S.). I could not reach him because of the many people around him, until the fourth day he saw me and took me beside himself.

He went on pilgrimage to Imam Ali's shrine after people went away, while I was his companion and heard what he stated. (Dr. Gorji, Tārīkh Fiqh wa Fuqahā', p. 115, quoted from Rijāl Najāshi). Hasan b. 'Ali b. Ziyād and Sha' told Ibn 'Īsa: “I saw 900 Sheikhs in this mosque (Kūfah Mosque), all of whom would say: 'Haddathani Ja'far b. Muhammad [Imam Ja'far Sadiq]'”. Hafiz Abu al-'Abbās b.

Uqdah Hamidānī Kūfī (died 333 A.H) has written a book about the names of whom had quoted from Imam Sādiq (A.S) and has introduced 4000 persons. During the time of Imam Baqir and Imam Sadiq, (A.S), hadithes spread so much among Shī'ites that had never spread before in any period or religion. (ref. Fadli, 'Abdul Hādī, pp. 203 & 204) This period is called the period of spreading knowledge of 'Aal-e Muhammad (A.S). (Ibid., p.

95 [^2]: To know the number and the names of 'Askarīyān's (A.S) pupils and companions ref. Tārīkh al-Tashrī' al-Islāmī. Sheikh Tūsī counts the number of Imam Hādī's (A.S) pupils in different fields as 185; among whom are distinguished people such as: Fadl b. Shādhān, Husayn b. Sa'id Ahwazi, Ayub b. Nuh, Abu 'Ali Hasan b. Rāshid, Hasan b. 'Ali Nāsir Kabīr, 'Abdul 'Azīm Hasani, 'Utmān b. Sa'id Ahwazi, some of whom have definitive works and publications in different fields of Islamic sciences.