Additional information
by Nasiru Garba (Translator), Hujjatullah Niko'ei (Author)
Now then, this book is here to introduce and explain to the reader two main principles of Shia creed which are necessity of appointing Prophets and the necessity of appointing Imams after the Messenger of Allah and the necessity that the Prophets and appointed Imams shall be infallible. Shia believed that there is a need for the physical presence of an infallible leader to guide people in every age, period and time until the coming of the Hour (Last Day), they primarily relied on intellect to prove this, then they backed it up by divine texts, meaning that the origin for their belief and their main proof for it is human intellect. That is in the beginning they saw that it is rationally, logically and intellectually imperative for Allah to send Prophets and to appoint infallible Imams to guide people after the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) and thereafter they went to the Qur'an and Sunnah to find texts that supports their claims. One of the Shia scholar al-Mufid in his book al-Irshad (pg. 347) stated that: "It (Imamah) proof was deduced by intellectual reasoning, that there must be an infallible Imam... And this principle does not require textual narrations to support it... because it is established through intellect."Ayatullah Khomaini stated in his book Kashful Asrar (pg. 105): "Imamah must be accepted even if it is not mentioned in Qur'an."This then is the first principle of Shia creed; it entailed that what they have seen as cogent through intellect doesn't need any textual proof (whether Qur'an or Sunnah) because they have established its validity by their brains, therefore it is true. The second principle of Shia creed is connected and interrelated to the first one in that they believe that if the Qur'an and the Sunnah clash with what they have deduced by their intellects, then the intellect is given precedence and the texts are to be given convenient interpretations and if no such interpretation is discernable, then the texts shall be rejected and cast-off.The author has debated all these premises with grand Shia scholars such as Ayatullah Nasir Mukarim Shirazi, Hujjatul Islam Muhsin Garuyan, and Ayatullah Ja'afar Subhani. He also discussed the concepts of occultation and infallibility of Imams based on intellect and texts and proved that texts ae nullified all these concepts.
