and declaring one-tenth of their own wealth lawful for them (1), along with other practices contrary to the religion of Islam.

The scholars have unanimously agreed that all of this is a fabrication against Alī, who is among those most entirely innocent (2) of all of it.

These people then began treating the things they had falsely attributed to him as praise for him. On that basis, they set him above the caliphs who preceded him, while regarding those caliphs’ freedom from such falsehoods (3) as a fault in them and a reason to hate them. This went so far that the leaders of the Bātiniyya (Esotericists) came (4) to maintain that Islam’s culmination and ultimate goal consist in affirming (5) the lordship of the celestial spheres and that beyond those spheres there is no maker or creator of them. They claim that this is the inner meaning of the religion of Islam with which the Messenger was sent, that this is its interpretation, and that Alī conveyed this interpretation to a select few until it reached Muhammad ibn Ismā'īl ibn Ja'far. They regard him as al-Qā'im (the one who shall arise), and hold his rule to be the rule now established. They further claim that he abrogates the religious dispensation of Muhammad ibn Abd Allah and reveals the esoteric interpretations that the latter had concealed and secretly confided to Alī.

These people also began exempting their inner-circle followers from prayer, zakat, fasting, and pilgrimage, while permitting them forbidden acts, including gross immoralities, injustice, evil (6), and other such things.