One who is All-Hearing and near. Indeed, the One upon whom you call is nearer to each of you than the neck of his mount.” This is a vast subject.

All Muslims know that neither ordinary Muslims nor their well-known shaykhs used to present their needs to Allah, outwardly or inwardly, through these intermediaries and gatekeepers. Exalted is Allah, far above being likened to created kings and above all else that the wrongdoers say.

This is akin to the claim of the Rāfidah that every age must have an infallible imam who serves as Allah’s proof against those subject to religious obligations, and without whom faith cannot be complete. Yet they also say that he was a boy who entered the cellar more than four hundred and forty years ago, while neither he nor any trace of him is known, and there is no perceptible sign or news of him.

Those who claim these ranks resemble the Rāfidah in certain respects. Indeed, this hierarchy and its numbers resemble, in some respects, the hierarchy of the Ismāʿīliyyah, the Nusayriyyah and others like them, with their al-sābiq (the Preceding One), al-tālī (the Following One), al-nātiq (the Speaker), al-asās (the Foundation), al-jasad (the Body), and other such ranks for which Allah has sent down no authority.