I was in total assurance regarding you, that I would find all that is necessary for this present, manifest, and broadcast through your enlightened thought and discerning vision.

Even if all that has passed, O my brother, and you have left me alone—nonetheless, I shall rise to this task in fulfillment of what we pledged to one another, and in performance of my duty. Perhaps your spirit will aid me if I lack your physical presence, and perhaps Allah will grant me length of life, health, and the capacity for this. No one knows as I do how difficult and incomplete this work will be without you.

In it, those who strayed did so after having knowledge. Thus, how fitting it would be if there were gathered for us images of what has been narrated concerning it from al-Husayn ibn Hamdan and his most illustrious followers, so that it may be present before us as a protective treasury against the factions (al-Butun) that birthed them, and as intellectual sources upon which we stand firm and between which we compare, until the deviation and weakness of what has reached us [claiming to be] through our Masters and their elite is revealed.

Then, their word shall shimmer in our intellect and spirit as radiance and a guiding light, and those darknesses shall disperse to vanish like dust in the air.

We had pledged to exert every effort to achieve this, for it is not hidden from any expert the difficulty of accomplishing such a task, and the required sources and references of encyclopedic knowledge. I was in