in a case, nor is he known to exist. What benefit, then, would he have brought even if he existed, let alone made Islam mighty?!
(* Moreover, the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—stated that Islam would remain mighty *) (1), and that the affairs of this community would remain sound (2), until twelve caliphs had held power. [If these twelve were the ones intended] (3), the last of whom is the awaited imam—who, according to them, exists now and will continue to exist until he appears—then Islam would have (4) remained mighty throughout both the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties. It would have been mighty even when the unbelievers rose up in the East and the West and inflicted upon the Muslims horrors too lengthy to describe. Islam would still be mighty to this day, yet this contradicts what the hadith indicates.
Furthermore, according to the Imāmiyyah, Islam is what they themselves follow, yet they are the most abased of the community’s sects. Among the followers of deviant doctrines, none are more abased than the Rāfidah, none conceal their views more, and none make greater use of dissimulation (5). They claim to be the followers of the twelve, yet they are utterly abased. What might, then, have these twelve brought to Islam, according to their claim?!
Many Jews, upon embracing Islam, adopt Shiism because they have seen the twelve mentioned in the Torah; (* they therefore suppose that these are those twelve. But that is not the case. Rather, the twelve are *) (6) those men of Quraysh who exercised general rule over the community. Islam was mighty in their time, and this is well known.