Rather...

Rather, it was the esoteric sense of the Prophethood that continued to pulse within him: Imāmate was the amplification of Prophethood, a more interiorized complement. According to Shī‘ite thought, divine guidance takes two forms: nubuwwah (prophethood) and wilāyah (guardianship) . [^10] The first is co-substantial to the “Muḥammadan Truth” [ al-ḥaqīqah al-muḥammadiyyah ], in an absolute, integral, primordial, pre-eternal, and post-eternal sense.

The second is constituted by the partial realities of the first: its emissions and luminous epiphanies [ maẓhar ]; in other words, the Imāms of the Prophetic Household who initiated and continued the “Cycle of Initiation” [ dā’irat al-nubuwwah ] that was sealed by the Prophet and which, like his luminaries, are identified with the pleroma of the “Light of Lights” [ nūr al-anwār ] of the “Muḥammadan Light” [ al-nūr al-muḥammadī ].

From this metaphysical point of view, the Twelve Imāms belong, in their condition of luminous epiphanies of “Muḥammadan Light,” to the same spiritual and temporal category as the Prophet without them been truly and properly prophets.

[^11] This notion is repeated in many aḥādīth [traditions] in relation to ‘Alī, like the one which says “You are to me as Aaron was to Moses except there will be no prophet after me” (Bukhārī, Muslim, Ḥākim, Ṣadūq, Mufīd, Kulaynī).[^12] The bond that exists between Muḥammad and ‘Alī goes far beyond that of blood.

What exists between them is a special spiritual tie [ nisbah ma‘nawiyyah ] which surpasses the relation of impossibility that “there will be no prophet after me.” The bond between Muḥammad and ‘Alī is the result of their common pre-existence in eternity where they were two spiritual entities united in the same luminous identity.

As Prophet Muḥammad has explained in various aḥādīth , “‘Alī and I are from the same Light”[^13] (Kulaynī, Majlisī, Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī) “People are from various trees, but I and ‘Alī are from the same Tree” (Tirmidhī, Ibn al-Maghazalī).[^14] The eminence and spiritual supremacy of the First Imām is also established in the significant tradition in which the Prophet states: “‘Alī has been sent secretly with every Prophet; but with me he has been sent openly” (Kāshānī qtd.

in Aḥmed ‘Alī 1157).[^15] It can also be seen in the tradition which states that: “Every prophet has an executor [ waṣī ] and a successor [ khalīfah ] and surely my executor and successor is ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib” (Muttaqī, al-Baghdādī).