Facsimile · p. 27
What about the innocent, and Iblis and the devils, and Gog and Magog, and the tree of Zaqqum, and the beast of the earth, and the fifth of the fifths, and what is the meaning of the opening of the surahs like Lam, Alif Lam Mim, etc.? . . When the caller is reassured about the called, he says to him: Do not rush, for the religion of God is too high and too great to be exchanged for others than its people, and whoever God guides believes in the Imams and follows their knowledge. Then he moves him to another stage by saying: "God has appointed Imams one after another, so the first of them is Ali, then Al-Husayn, then Ali bin Al-Husayn, nicknamed Zayn al-Abidin, then Muhammad bin Ali, then Ja'far al-Sadiq." Then he moves him to another stage from the order of the prophets and the order of the Imams, the heirs of the prophets, then to the confirmation that every Imam must have a group that supports him, scattered throughout the earth, numbering twelve men. Then he gradually proceeds in teaching to the ninth and last degree, by taking the covenant from the followers to perform the trust, not to reveal anything, and to prevent the Imams from what they prevent themselves from. And if he violates anything of that, he is innocent of God. It appears that these are the religious teachings. As for the political teachings of working to overthrow the temporal state and carrying out revolutions and their means, they are reserved for a special elite of leaders, and thus they organized themselves.