We say to him: We answer you regarding that and guide you to it through the famous traditions, the luminous narrated discourses, the Wise Quran, the established esoteric interpretation (ta’wil), intellectual proofs, clear testimonies, and radiant traces. I hope that this finds within you an enlightened heart, a virtuous chest, a conscious ear, and a clear eye, so that we may meet its reality with acceptance and submission, and its correctness with reverence and magnification. Thus, we—and whoever looks into this—may attain the reward and merit, through the grace of God, His mercy, His will, and His prior decree; truly, He is Exalted and Great.

Know—may God support you with His aid—that the Truth is established only by four things:

The Revealed Book of God, which contains the clarification of every difficulty, as God—the Loftiest of speakers—said: {We have neglected nothing in the Book}. And His saying: {Indeed, it is We who bring the dead to life and record what they have put forth and their traces, and all things We have enumerated in a manifest Imam}, which is the Book. The disbeliever is the "dead" one; once he attains gnosis, he has lived the eternal life.

The Word of the Lord Messenger, Mighty is His Might, and what he indicated and pointed toward.

The Consensus of the people of knowledge and transmission.

The Proof of Intellect.

Among the evidences we mention is the saying of God in His Great Book: {Indeed, God [alone] has knowledge of the Hour and sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs. And no soul perceives what it will earn tomorrow, and no soul perceives in what land it will die. Indeed, God is Knowing and Acquainted}.

These are five traits that God has reserved for His own knowledge. He has clarified to the people of His gnosis that He is the One Acquainted with them and the Knower of their science. The Lord Messenger, Mighty is His Might, pointed to Him through them and informed that they belong to Him, and that He has reserved them for Himself apart from His creation and beings.