By God, had I not said it regarding Ja'far, I would not have said it regarding Muhammad; and indeed Ja'far and Muhammad are one and the same." His saying "Ja'far and Muhammad are one and the same" is something the Knower must contemplate with the eye of insight by the aid and success of God.
(449) Among what our jurist the Sheikh Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi—may God sanctify his soul—related in the book al-Hidaya which he composed for the Prince Saif al-Dawla: Ahmad ibn Yusuf narrated to me from Ishaq ibn Muhammad from Abu Sukayna from Muhammad ibn Mansur from al-Mufaddal al-Dahkani, who said: Some of the Shia said to al-Sadiq—exalted be his glory: "O our lord, our backs have been broken since you cursed Abu al-Khattab, yet we have heard from you that Abu al-Khattab is your Gate whom God gifted to you, and what God has gifted, He never takes back His gift?!"
al-Sadiq—exalted be his glory—said to them: "As for the ship, it belonged to poor people working at sea: so I intended to cause a defect in it as there was after them a king who seized every ship by force. Go to Abu al-Khattab and say to him from me: You are the interpretation of the Ship, and the King's interpretation is Isa ibn Musa ibn Ali ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Abbas, the commander of commanders with al-Mansur."
(450) By his narration from Muhammad ibn Amir from Ismail al-Qummi from al-Haytham ibn Ubayd from Zayd, who said: I heard al-Sadiq—exalted be his glory—saying: "Abu al-Khattab is the vessel of our knowledge, the place of our secret, the trustworthy one over our reports, and he is our Gate. I asked God to place his provision under my hand and my provision under his hands1; so He did that, and God gifted him to me as a gift He shall never take back." The report is long; we have shortened it to this section.