Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (PBUH) is reported to have said,
‘It is a right on every Muslim who knows us [i.e. believes in the Imamate of Ahl al-Bayt], to present [to himself] his actions every day and night and scrutinize them, where he becomes a reckoner for himself. If he sees a good deed, he must increase it and if he sees a sin, he must repent for it, lest he should get disgraced on the day of judgment.’
Ibn Abi Shuba al-Harrany, Tuhaf-al-Uqool, p.301
“The beginning of all things, their origin, their force, their prosperity, is that ‘aql [Reason/Intellect] without which one can profit from nothing. God created it to adorn His creation, and as a light for them. It is through ‘aql that the servants recognize that God is their Creator and that they themselves are created beings, that He is the Director and they are the directed, that He is the Eternal and they are the ephemeral; they are guided by their ‘aql when they observe God’s creation, His heavens, His earth, His sun, His moon, His night and His day…It is thanks to ‘aql that they can distinguish what is beautiful from what is ugly, that they realize that darkness is in ignorance and that light is in Knowledge”–Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ja‘far ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq (A.S.)
[Source: Muḥammad ibn Ya’qūb al-Kulaynī (d. 941), Usūl al-Kāfī, Vol. 1]
The time of the sixth Infallible Imam marks the period of developments in ideologies and the emergence and growth of various Islamic and non-Islamic schools of thought and sects. Some sects with relatively long history had managed to institutionalize a framework for their line of thought and attracted some followers. Imam Sadiq (PBUH) as the the guardian of the school of Islam could not be indifferent towards these developments.
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