Many traditions to this effect were gathered by al-Kulaynī...
Many traditions to this effect were gathered by al-Kulaynī in his voluminous compilation al-Kāfī .[^6] They stress the fact that the Prophet and the Imām are from the same essence and the same light[^7] and what is said of one is applicable to any one of the twelve.[^8] Shī'ite gnosis enables us to understand the importance of the situation and exactly what was on the line with the Caliphate.[^9]By the political substitution of Abū Bakr for 'Alī, the organic link between the zāhir [exoteric] and the bātin [esoteric] was temporarily broken.
📌In Sunnism, this led to the development of a legalistic religion, based on a purely juristic interpretation of Islām.[^10] It was thus left to Sūfī and Shī'ite Islām to preserve, in their exoteric practices and doctrines, the lost esoteric equilibrium. [^1]: Editor's Note: The nass or appointment of 'Alī and the succeeding Imāms is one of the issues stressed by Shaykh Mufīd in Kitāb al-irshād.
📌[^2]: Editor's Note: As Imām al-Sādiq explains, ”'Alī was a man of knowledge, and knowledge is inherited. And a man of knowledge never dies unless another one remains after him who knows his knowledge” (al-Kāfī, 156: hadīth 590). Imām al-Ridā wrote in a letter that “Muhammad was Allāh's custodian over His creatures. When he was taken, we, the Household, were his inheritors” (160, hadīth 598).
📌[^3]: Editor's Note: 'Ismah may also be translated as “a state of sinlessness.” [^4]: Editor's Note: There can be no monarchy in Islām as can be seen in Imām Khumaynī's “The Incompatibility of Monarchy with Islām,” Islām and Revolution (Berkely: Mizan P, 1981): 200-208. The Imāmate was given to those appointed by Allāh, and was not necessarily from father to eldest son. As Imām al-Sādiq explains “Do you think that he who appoints a successor from among us, appoints anyone he wishes?
No, by Allāh, indeed it is a covenant from the Messenger of Allāh to one man after another, until it comes down to the one who is entrusted with it” (Kulaynī 1:2, IV, 320: hadīth 739). In another hadīth he explains that “The Imāmate is a covenant from Allāh, to Whom belong Might and Majesty, which is entrusted to men who are named” (320: hadīth 738).
📌[^5]: Editor's Note: As Nasr explains, “Shī'ism believes that there is a 'Primordial Light' passed from one prophet to another and after the Prophet of Islām to the Imāms.