and that the prophets and Allah’s allies are of their kind, concealing the same disbelief and theological negation that they themselves conceal. Thus, they combine concealing disbelief with claiming that this concealed belief is true faith according to those possessed of spiritual knowledge. They do not disclose to those who respond to them that what is concealed impugns the Messenger and the believers and declares him a liar. Rather, they present it as part of the Messenger’s perfection and the completeness of his spiritual state. They claim that what he did represents the utmost perfection, something only the most perfect of men can accomplish: governing people justly and developing the world along a virtuous path. Some groups may regard this as true both inwardly and outwardly. Their position thus ultimately makes hypocrisy the very reality of faith, although it is necessarily known that hypocrisy is the opposite of faith.

For this reason, their principal gateway has been Shiism and the Rāfidī doctrine, for the Rāfidīs are the most ignorant and mendacious of the sects, and the furthest removed from understanding transmitted sources and rational matters. They make dissimulation one of the foundations of their religion and attribute countless lies to the Prophet’s household—so many that only Allah can enumerate them. They even report that Jaʿfar al-Sādiq said, “Dissimulation is my religion and the religion of my forefathers.”

“Dissimulation” is the hallmark of hypocrisy, for its reality according to them is to say with their tongues what is not in their hearts—and this is the very reality of hypocrisy.

Since this is one of the foundations of their religion, whenever transmitters report anything from ʿAlī or another member of the Prophet’s household that agrees with Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, they say, “They said this by way of dissimulation.” They then opened the door of hypocrisy to the Qarmatian esotericists