the infallible person in order to remove injustice and evil from the city’s inhabitants, do you then say (1) that every city Allah Most High has created has always had an infallible person who wards off people’s wrongdoing, or not?

If you adopt the former position, this is a blatant denial of reality. Is there an infallible person in the lands of the unbelievers—whether polytheists or People of the Book? Was there an infallible person in Syria under Muāwiya?

If you say, “Rather, we maintain that there is one in every city and that he has deputies in all the other cities,” it will be said: “Does every infallible person have deputies in all the cities of the earth, or only in some of them?”

If you say, “In all of them,” this is a denial of reality. If you say, “In some but not others,” it will be said: “What is the difference, if what you have mentioned is obligatory upon Allah and every city has the same need for an infallible person?”

The sixth point:

It may be said: Is this infallible person alone infallible, or is every one of his deputies infallible (2)? They do not adopt the latter position, and to do so would be a denial of reality. The Prophet’s deputies—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—were not infallible, nor were Alī’s deputies. Indeed, some of them were guilty of evil and disobedience unparalleled among Muāwiya’s deputies in their conduct toward their commander. Where, then, is infallibility?

If you say, “Infallibility is required only of him,” it will be said: “What benefit do the inhabitants of lands beyond the imam’s reach derive from the imam’s infallibility—especially when the infallible person cannot compel his deputies and is instead powerless—when they pray