Al-Imāma wa’l-Tabṣira min al-Ḥayra

أحمد بن ادريس، ومحمد العطّار معاً: عن الأشعري، عن ابن هاشم، عن محمد بن حمّاد، عن الحسن بن ابراهيم، عن يونس، عن هشام بن الحكم—في خبر طويل—قال: جاء (بريهة) جاثليق النصارى، فقال لأبي الحسن عليه السلام: جعلت فداك، أنّى لكم التوراة والانحيل وكتب الأنبياء؟ قال: هي عندنا وراثة من عندهم، نقرأها كما قرأوها، ونقولها كما قالوها، إنّ الله لا يجعل حجّة في أرضه يسأل عن شيء؟ فيقول: لا أدري، الخبر.

Aḥmad b. Idrīs and Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār together, from al-Ashʿarī, from Ibn Hāshim, from Muḥammad b. Ḥammād, from al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm, from Yūnus, from Hishām b. al-Ḥakam, who—in a lengthy report—narrated: “Barīha, the catholicos of the Christians,[1] came and said to Abī’l-Ḥasan (as): “May I be made your sacrifice. Are the (true) Torah, Gospel and (other) Prophetic scriptures with you people?”[2] He replied: “They are in our possession, an inheritance from them (the Prophets). We read them as they read them, and we relay them as they relayed them. Allāh would not appoint a Divine authority upon His earth, of whom questions about anything could be asked, only for him to say: “I do not know.”—(so follows the rest of) the report.

سعد، عن علي بن محمد، عن حمدان بن سليمان، عن عبداللّه بن محمد اليماني، عن منيع بن الحجّاج، عن حسين بن علوان، عن أبي عبداللّه عليه السلام، قال: إنّ الله فضّل اُولي العزم من الرسل بالعلم على الأنبياء. وورثنا علمهم، وفضّلنا عليهم في فضلهم، وعلّم رسول الله صلّى الله عليه وآله ما لا يعلمون، وعلّمنا علم رسول الله صلّى الله عليه وآله فروينا لشيعتنا. فمن قبل منهم فهو أفضلهم، وأينما نكون فشيعتنا معنا.

Saʿd, from ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, from Ḥamdān b. Sulaymān, from ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Yamānī, from Munayʿ b. al-Ḥajjāj, from Ḥusayn b. ʿUlwān, from Abī ʿAbd Allāh (as), who said: “Allāh favoured those with determination [1] among the Apostles, through knowledge, over the Prophets. We have inherited their knowledge, and He favoured us over them with respect to what they were favoured with. The Apostle of Allāh (sawa) was made to know that which they had not known, and we were made to know the Apostle of Allāh’s (sawa) knowledge, which we transmit to our Shīʿa. Whoever among them accepts it is the best of them, and wherever we may be, our Shīʿa are with us.”