ignorant of the circumstances of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and of how the affairs of the Muslims stood at the beginning of Islam. As for one who knows what Islam was like and acknowledges, inwardly and outwardly, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, he cannot possibly be an inward Rāfidī. It is inconceivable that anyone should be an inward Rāfidī unless he is a secret unbeliever and hypocrite, or someone ignorant of what Islam was like—[grossly ignorant] (1).

Regarding the story he related about one of the leading teachers, some Baghdadis told me that it was a fabricated lie. Yet if he was truthful in what he reported about a teacher from either of these two groups, it is entirely possible that among those who affiliate themselves with the four imams there may be a secret unbeliever, a godless apostate from Islam (2), let alone a Rāfidī. Whoever argues from the fact that some people are inwardly secret unbelievers that all Muslim scholars are secret unbelievers is among the most ignorant of people. The same (3) applies to one who reasons from some people’s inward Rāfidism.

Had the names of these two teachers been disclosed to us, we would have exposed enough of his ignorance (4) to make his true condition (5) clear. Does the mere fact that a man was appointed to teach under a regime such as that of the unbelieving Turks, or of those newly converted to Islam, prove the teacher’s merit and religious integrity, such that his views should be accorded weight? This is despite knowing that (6) many of those who hold teaching posts