Just as they have attempted to prove this claim and others like it—that speech is a reality distinct from knowledge and will—by means of the analogical syllogisms they advance (1), once they allege that this has been established by pure reason they go on to say: “The infallible Imam must be known through an explicit text (nas), for there is no path to knowing someone’s infallibility except by such a text.” They then add: “No one after the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—has been designated by text except ʿAli, because no one in the Ummah has ever claimed a textual designation for anyone else. If, therefore, he were not the one so designated, it would follow that the entire Ummah had unanimously agreed upon falsehood.”

For, they argue, there are only two parties: one affirms that he has indeed been named explicitly (2); the other holds that there is no text in his favor, nor in anyone else’s. According to their own premise that such designation is rationally obligatory, this second view is invalid, and the first must necessarily be correct—that he alone is the one textually appointed. Whenever the Ummah agrees (3) that a question is confined to two opinions, one of them must be true and the truth cannot lie in a third. Such is the substance of their proof.

Therefore, when I examined the falsity of this argument in my discussions with the Rāfiḍah and wrote on the matter in a way that makes the point plain, I refuted what they alleged concerning