Al-Mufaddal ibn 'Umar (from him is peace), the Master Abu 'Abdillah Assadiq (may his glory be exalted) said: "What is the number of our Shi'a in Kufa?" I said: "Fifty thousand." He kept reducing it until he said: "Twenty." Then he said: "By God, O Mufaddal, I wish that our Shi'a in Kufa were twenty-five men who know our affair which we are upon, saying nothing about us except the truth. I would have cast upon them a deeply hidden secret, which they would guard and keep concealed. If they wanted to reach me in a single moment, they would have done so."1
From al-Mufaddal ibn Qays, our Master Abu 'Abdillah (may his glory be exalted) said: "How many are our Shi'a in Kufa?" He said: "I said: 'Fifty thousand.'" He said: "He kept reducing it until he said: 'We hope they are twenty!'" Then he (may his glory be exalted) said: "By God, I wish there were twenty-five men in Kufa who know our affair which we are upon, and say nothing about us except the truth."2
And from al-Mufaddal ibn 'Umar (from him is peace), our Master Abu 'Abdillah Assadiq (may his glory be exalted) said: "Our Gnosis has not settled except with a few people, they are the Unitarians. Those who know us are not counted by the thousands, nor by the hundreds, nor by the tens. Rather, their number is by the fives or by the ones. And know, O Mufaddal, that our Gnosis, with our elite Shi'a, is the difficult, hard to bear, which none can bear except a favored angel, or a sent Prophet, or a believing servant whose heart God has tested for faith."3
From al-Harith, he said: I heard 'Abd al-Malik ibn A'yan asking our Master Abu 'Abdillah (may his glory be exalted), and he did not stop asking him until he said: "Then the people are destroyed?" He said: "Yes, by God, O Ibn A'yan, all the people are destroyed." I said: "The people of the East and the West?" He said: "It was opened upon error. Yes, by God, they are destroyed, except for three people: Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr, and al-Miqdad. And 'Ammar, Abu Sasan al-Ansari, Hudhayfa, and Abu 'Amra joined them, so they became seven."4