Tūmart after his death. For no one who believes in Allah and the Last Day can doubt that Abū Bakr, Umar, Uthmān, and Alī—may Allah be pleased with them—were better and more excellent than he was, and that their adherence to the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—and their fulfillment of his command were more complete(1). Indeed, a number of the Umayyad caliphs(2) and the Abbasid caliphs were more worthy of mention than this man styled the Mahdī. Their caliphates were better than his; their upholding of Islam was better than his; their ascendancy throughout the eastern and western reaches of the earth was greater than his; and the good they accomplished was far greater than what he accomplished. He himself(3) was guilty of such falsehood, oppression, ignorance, and evil as those men never were. How, then, could he be the Mahdī rather than they? And how could mentioning and praising him in the sermon be prescribed(4), while mentioning them was not? How can someone who mentions a man like this object to mentioning those men?

Still more egregious is the objection raised by [these](5) Imāmīs, who object to mentioning the Rightly Guided Caliphs while mentioning twelve men. Each of the three was better than the best of the twelve and more complete in caliphate and imamate. As for the rest of the twelve, they fall into several categories. Some were Companions for whom Paradise was attested, such as al-Hasan and al-Husayn. Yet a great many other Companions for whom Paradise was attested shared this distinction with them(6), and among the earliest forerunners were those superior to both, such as the people of Badr. Both of them—may Allah be pleased