not fitting for one who is impure (junub) to enter the houses of Prophets?" Abu Basir went out to contemplate the news regarding the two men: why Mufaddal ibn Umar was impure but his outward impurity did not make him "impure" [to the Imam], while Abu Basir was considered so? It was because Abu Basir was impure in the inward—doubting and skeptical.

I say: This confirms and proves that the Exalted, by this washing, water, and the limbs mentioned in His Mighty Book, intends nothing but their inward reality. The non-acceptance of prayer from a worshiper without the washing of these limbs with this water is an indication that the Person of this Prayer [Ali] does not accept the prayer of the worshiper except through the belief in the Gnosis of the Persons of these limbs [the Orphans and the Gate] and the belief in the knowledge of the manifestation of the Creator—the Exalted—to each of them in a known measure, just as each person among them has a station known. By their sanctification through the knowledge of the Gate—who is the Person of the Water with which those limbs are washed—just as those of the outward (Ahl al-Zahir) do not have these manifest prayers accepted except by washing with this water or by Tayammum.

The People of Monotheism pointed to these two (water and earth) as we previously established: the indication is that if none of the