and their strength, and whoever failed did so due to a lack of followers and their weakness. We do not support Ibn Khaldun because he is Sunni, nor do we weaken his opponents because they are Shia. We accept what we accept and reject what we reject solely for the sake of truth, as we believe. Ibn Khaldun's words are closer to reason. Even if the hadiths narrated about the Mahdi were weakened by Ibn Khaldun due to their chain of transmission, there is another reason for weakening them, which is their incompatibility with reason. How can it be conceivable for an infallible Imam to emerge at a predetermined time and fill the earth with justice as it was filled with injustice? Indeed, reality also contradicts this. Even those who succeeded in the Mahdist call and established a state did not achieve justice or remove injustice. Rather, the revolutionaries and the oppressed were of one religion and one policy, as we have explained. The Sufis, as Ibn Khaldun said, organized an inner kingdom in the pattern of the outer kingdom and gave their followers titles, including the Awtaad, the Abdal, the Nuqabaa, and the Nujabaa, with the Qutb at their head. They ascended in ranks as officials do. This Qutb knows what was and what will be. Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah was asked: "Is there in existence a group of the Awliyaa' of Allah called the Awtaad, and another called the Abdal, and others called the Nuqabaa, and others called..."