Shaykh Tabarsi has also mentioned in Al-Ehtejaaj2 that:
Another epistle of Imam Zamana (a.s.) arrived on Thursday, 23rd
Zilhajj 412 A.H. addressed to Shaykh Mufeed (r.a.) in which it
was written:
“From a traveler of the path of Allah to one, whom the Almighty
Allah has given the knowledge of truth and who is the proof of
truth.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Peace and mercy of Allah be upon you, O helper of religion. O
one, who invites to Allah with the word of truth. We thank Allah,
except Whom there is no deity, for your existence and invoke His
blessings for our master and chief, Muhammad, the seal of the
prophets and his Ahle Bayt.
After that may the Almighty Allah keep you safe from every
calamity and may He keep you safe from the plots of the enemy;
your private supplication was in our view and we have also
interceded for the acceptance of your Dua. I am writing this from
my tent, which is fixed at an unknown hill and I have walked here
from a valley and it is possible that one day I will come down
from this hill and reach habitation. Perhaps my circumstances
may change and our news may reach you and the proximity that
you seek through good deeds may be given to you by Allah.
May Allah guard you with His eyes that never sleep. You should
face these circumstances. Meanwhile, the people of falsehood
will be destroyed as a result of which the believers will be
pleased and the sinners will be aggrieved.
And the sign of our rising will be the incident, which will be
effected through another condemned hypocrite. He will legalize
the killing of a protected life; even then he will not be able to
achieve his aim by oppressing the believers, because our prayers
will be there in their favor that neither an angel of the heaven nor
the earth can prevent. So our friends should rest assured that
what the Almighty Allah does is for the best. Till the people
continue to remain aloof from the unlawful.
O sincere friend and struggler, may Allah help you as He had
helped His chosen servants in the past. I promise that if anyone
from your brothers in faith acquires the fear of Allah and pays
that amount, which is obligatory on him to the eligible recipient,
would be safe from sorrow and calamities. But if anyone is
miserly in giving away the wealth that Allah has given him
temporarily, he has made a loss for his children and his
hereafter. If our Shia, may Allah help them in His obedience, had
been loyal to the pledge taken from them, the bounty of our
meeting them would not have been delayed. And the honor of
meeting us would have perfected their recognition earlier. Thus,
the only things that keep us hidden from them are those same
matters that reach us about them that do not please us and which
we don’t expect from them. And Allah is the helper and He is the
best caretaker and protector. May He bless Muhammad the giver
of good tidings and the warner and his purified progeny and peace be on them.
Letter written on the 1st of Shawwal in 412 A.H:
“This is my letter to you; O friend, truth is inspired upon
you. Which I have dictated and a trustworthy person has
inscribed. Keep it secret from everyone and make a copy of it and
only convey the points mentioned in it to those of our friends,
whom you trust. If Allah wills, the blessings of Allah would be in
their share. Praise be to Allah and blessings be upon our chief,
Muhammad the Prophet and his purified Progeny.”
The author says: There are some reminders regarding these
two orders, which we are compelled to hint at:
First: What is known from the apparent tenor of Ehtejaaj of
Shaykh Tabarsi, is that two letters were received by the Shaykh
from His Eminence in the writing of some confidants of the
Imam. They had embellished each of the letters with some lines
for expression of thankfulness, but in the words of some scholars,
the word of epistle is mentioned as will become clear that there
were more than two epistles; as was mentioned in the report of
Laulau after the mention of couplets written in the hand of His
Eminence (a.s.) on the grave of the Shaykh, hence it is not
unlikely that it was also issued by His Eminence for this
Shaykh…and so on.
The great teacher, Allamah Bahbahani says in the appendix:
The excellence of Shaykh Mufeed is mentioned in Ehtejaaj in the
epistles of Saahebul Amr (a.s.)…and so on.
Perhaps they have considered the actual writing and blessed
letter to be more than one and Shaykh Yusuf has narrated from
the venerable author, Yahya bin Batriq Hilli, author of Umdah, who is among the scholars of the 5th century; he says in his
treatise of Nahjul Ulum Ilaa Nafiul Madum:
His Eminence, Saahebul Amr sent three letters for the
Shaykh, one letter every year; on the basis of his statement, one
letter was lost and it is not mentioned in books.
Second: Shaykh Tabarsi has said at the beginning of the
book of Ehtejaaj:1 We will not mention the chains of narrators of
the reports, which we shall present in this book either because
there is consensus on them; that is on their authenticity or from
the aspect of that report being in agreement with logical
reasoning or from the aspect of its publicity in biographies and
books of the opponents and supporters; that is we do not mention
in this book reports, except those on which there is consensus or
logical proof or that which is famous in books of the two sects
and these two letters definitely inform that they are from His
Eminence (a.s.) and not from the aspect that it should be said that
they were narrated or quoted.
If it is said: it was also reliable, according to the promise,
which was made at the beginning of the book. Thus, those two
letters should be such that consensus should have been
established on narrating them or they have become famous in the
book of Shaykh Yahya bin Batriq Hilli in this treatise he says that
there are two ways of purification and testimony of the Shaykh,
till he says: Second is that which is restricted to the Shaykh and it
is that which is narrated by a sufficient number of Shia and
treated it with acceptance that our master Saahebul Amr (a.s.)
wrote three letters to him and after the mention of the subjects of the letters, says: All this praise and purification and it is the
purest praise of the statement of the Imam of the nation and the
successor of the Imams (a.s.).
Therefore, the statement of these two venerable scholars
prove that these two letters were well known among the scholars
generally and they have not hesitated in quoting them and this
does not happen, except when the conveyer is absolutely reliable
and he is also aware of the authenticity of what he is quoting.
Without these testimonies, how can the verse be such that
the scholars accept them and attribute to definite decision them to
His Eminence and Bahrul Uloom, in his Rejaal, has hinted at this
point; as will be mentioned with other doubts and their removal
in the next chapter.
Third: In the first epistle, the Imam has mentioned some
signs of his reappearance, which I would explain in some detail.
After consideration it is learnt that its explanation depends on
mention of a large number of reports composed of verses and
portents and implication of these verses to some incident in them
by accident and prohibited conjecture.
Moreover, such benefit, is in fact not their mention; whether
by excess of contradictions among them as all their apparent is
excused and their disputation with verses of Quran and signs of
the Judgment Day and mixing up of these two kinds of verses
with each other and possibility of change and alteration in the
actual or in the apparent and all their qualities, so much so that
till the quantity which in reports, is regarded as inevitable, as will
be mentioned in a clear report in Chapter Eleven as they are also
regarded as Badaa and it would be known what is the implication of inevitable is not its apparent and not being result of knowledge
or action in it the foremost is to leave its opposite and
supplication for the hastening of reappearance and awaiting for
reappearance all the time as will be mentioned in Chapter Ten.
And Allah does what He wants.
Al-Ehtejaaj, vol. 1, pp. 324-325