[The Rāfidī’s claim that some Sunnis inwardly adhere to the Imāmī school, and the response to it]

Section (1).

The Rāfidī (2) said:

“We have often seen people who inwardly adhere to the school (3) of the Imāmiyya but are prevented from openly professing it by their love of worldly life and pursuit of leadership. I once heard one of the leading Hanbali scholars say, ‘I follow the Imāmī school.’ I asked him, ‘Why (4), then, do you teach according to the Hanbali school?’ He replied, ‘Your school provides neither mules nor monthly stipends.’ Moreover, when the foremost of the Shāfiʿī teachers (5) of our time died, he instructed that some of the believers (6) should take charge of washing him and preparing his body for burial, and that he should be buried at the shrine of our master al-Kāzim. I bear witness that he adhered to the Imāmī school.”

The response is that his statement, “We have often seen,” is a lie (7). It may indeed be the case that someone who affiliates himself with the schools of the four imams is inwardly a Rāfidī, just as someone who outwardly professes Islam may inwardly be a hypocrite. Since the Rāfidīs are of the same kind as the hypocrites and conceal their true state, they have had to present themselves outwardly as something else (8), just as the hypocrites (9) have had to put on an outward show other than disbelief. Such a thing is found only in one who is