Among the Rāfida(1) \ 98. are those who say:
“Jafar ibn Muhammad died, and the Imam after Jafar is his son Ismāʿīl.”
They denied that Ismāʿīl had died during his father’s lifetime, and said:
“He will not die until he comes to rule, for his father used to state that he was his successor and the Imam after him.”
Among the Rāfida are the Qarāmita. They claim that succession to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—continued by explicit designation down to Jafar(2), as the Twelvers maintain, and that Jafar(3) explicitly designated his grandson, Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl, as Imam. They claimed that Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl remains alive to this day—that is, until the beginning of the fourth century](4)—and that he has not died and will not die until(5) he rules the earth. They also claimed that he is the Mahdī whose advent had previously been foretold. In support of this, they cited reports transmitted from their predecessors, in which(6) they stated that the seventh Imam is their Qā'im.
They(7) are called the Seveners, just as those others are called the Twelvers. Authors(8) recorded their doctrines at an early stage, before the fourth century and before their emergence in the Maghrib(9) and Cairo, for their movement spread in the course of the