As a result...

As a result, a further comparison between the attitudes of the followers of these two respective Imams discloses a trend towards a clear acceptance of Ja'far as the Imam largely on the principle of Nass This is evident from the action of a group of the Kufan Shi'is who, after the death of Al-Baqir, adhered for some time to Zayd, but soon abandoned him and went over to Ja'far, whom they regarded as the representative of Al-Baqir's claims.[^4] Hodgson quotes Strothmann's suggestion, “that the story of the Kufan Shi'is abandoning Zayd for Ja'far shows that they already accepted the idea of a line of Imams by inheritance.”[^5] The idea of the Nass Imamate, however, became such a common instrument that not only Ja'far, but a number of ghulat (extremist Shi'is of Kufa, who will be discussed later), such as Bayan, Abu Mansur, and Mughira,[^6] claimed inheritance from Al-Baqir and achieved some short-lived success.

There are numerous references in our sources to the effect that Ja'far repeatedly condemned those fanatics and warned his followers not to accept their traditions. The second fundamental principle embodied in the doctrine of the Imamate as elaborated and emphasized by Ja'far was that of 'Ilm. This means that an Imam is a divinely inspired possessor of a special sum of knowledge of religion, which can only be passed on before his death to the following Imam.

In this way the Imam of the time becomes the exclusively authoritative source of knowledge in religious matters, and thus without his guidance no one can keep to the right path.[^7] This special knowledge includes both the external (zahir) and the esoteric (batin) meanings of the Qur'an.[^8] A close scrutiny of the traditions related from Al-Baqir and then mostly from Ja'far on the subject of the Imamate will show that they rotate around these two principles of Nass and 'Ilm, which are not merely conjoined or added to one another, but are so thoroughly fused into a unitary vision of religious leadership that it is impossible to separate the one from the other.

Hence Nass in fact means transmission of that special knowledge of religion which had been exclusively and legitimately restricted to the divinely favoured Imams of the House of the Prophet through 'Ali, and which can only be transferred from one Imam to his successor as the legacy of the chosen family.