my brothers, for I cannot endure [all] that You have tasked me with regarding them. O Greatest Divinity (Lāhūt), O most Generous Lord, O Ali, O Great One (Ya ‘Alī ya ‘Aẓīm)."

I say: The Creator—Almighty—has informed us in His Mighty Book that "He tasketh not a soul beyond its scope." Abdullah ibn Saba said: "I cannot endure that which You have tasked me with," as an alert that the obligations God has imposed upon us—of knowledge and action—were mentioned so that we may know what they are, and so we may know the reality of His grace in accepting some from us rather than the whole. Likewise, He mentioned to us an abundance of prohibitions so that we may know the reality of his encompassing pardon for us by our refraining from some [prohibitions], let alone all of them, as evidenced by His saying, the Almighty: {And He is ever Merciful to the believers} (Al-Ahzab: 43).

As for the meaning of the Commander of the Faithful burning him [Ibn Saba] and his brothers with fire, it was merely to demonstrate the necessity of concealing secrets (kitmān al-asrār) from the people of denial (ahl al-inkār).

Similarly, his [Ibn Saba's] revealing of the secrets was to demonstrate the necessity of declaring religious secrets to the believers. The evidence for this is the word of Samia bin al-Jarrah to him when he asked: "O my Master, why did you reveal the Secret of God?" and his