They are the Prominent Hamlets (Qurā al-Ẓāhira)

[1] “Al-ʿAskar” refers to Samarra, the Abbasid garrison town and capital (for a time) where the Imams صلوات الله عليهم and their families, since the time of Imam al-Hādī صلوات الله عليه, had been forcefully kept under house arrest and a suffocating degree of surveillance on the orders of the Abbasid “caliphs.” This, and the context of the report, is why the only viable candidate in identifying this “Jaʿfar” fellow is the infamous Jaʿfar al-Kadhdhāb (Jaʿfar the Liar), Imam al-Hādī’s son, al-ʿAskarī’s brother and the promised, occulted Mahdī’s own uncle. The emissary sought Jaʿfar out because the man from Balkh who had sent him there was rendered bereft of an Imam of guidance after the murder of Imam al-ʿAskarī صلوات الله عليه and Imam al-Mahdī’s عجل الله فرجه going into occultation, and he needed to send the rightful Imam his share (sahm al-Imām) of the obligatory one-fifth tax (al-khums), so he acted on the principles he came to know from the previous Imams صلوات الله عليهم in regard to what people are obligated to do when an Imam dies (refer to chapter 20 of the main part of this book) by outfitting an acquaintance with money and a note. That the note had no actual writing on it is precisely the point: the true and rightful Imam would know what he intended, on account of his Divinely bestowed knowledge—hence, the last line in this report.

[2] Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī al-Hādī is proving his title of “the Liar” true here when he falsely purports that a badāʾ, a disclosure of the true will of Allāh in regard to any given matter in rectification of a previous disclosure and/or the mere conjectures of people in respect to that, had occurred in the matter of the identity of Imam al-ʿAskarī’s صلوات الله عليه true successor, in the view of the man from Balkh who had sent the emissary to search for that successor on his behalf. The purpose of Jaʿfar’s lie was to usurp the money which was of his nephew, the Imam’s share (sahm al-Imām) from the established one-fifth tax (al-khums), by sidestepping the challenge the man from Balkh had set up to determine the true successor and rightful recipient of his money—a challenge that could only be correctly answered by he who was Divinely, supernaturally bestowed with knowledge.