Likewise, so many lies have been fabricated against Ja'far al-Sādiq that only Allah knows their extent. He was even credited with teachings on astrological prognostication, thunder, lightning, and casting lots—which is a form of seeking decisions through divining arrows. The book Manāfi' Suwar al-Qurān (The Benefits of the Surahs of the Quran) was also attributed to him, along with other things from which scholars know that Ja'far—may Allah be pleased with him—was entirely free. Even forms of Quranic exegesis following the method of the esotericists were attributed to him, as Abū Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī reported in his book Haqā'iq al-Tafsīr (The Realities of Exegesis). He included a selection of interpretations that he presented as part of Ja'far’s exegesis, but these amount to distorting words from their proper contexts and replacing the meaning Allah Most High intended in the verses with one He did not intend (1).
Anyone with knowledge of him knows that he was innocent of these statements and of lying about Allah in interpreting His Mighty Book.
Some have likewise attributed to him the work known as Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Kadar (The Epistles of the Brethren of Turbidity) (2). Yet this work was composed more than two hundred years after Ja'far al-Sādiq. Ja'far died in 148 AH, whereas the work was composed during the rule of the esoteric Ismā'īlī Ubaydids, when they seized Egypt and built (3) Cairo. It was composed by a group who sought to combine philosophy, the Sharia, and Shiism, following the same course as those Ubaydids, who claimed to be descendants of Alī.