Then he mentions that the concealment—the concealment of the divine knowledge from the people of deviation—was only a matter put forward by our master, the Commander of the Faithful, advising Hasan and Husayn to safeguard it; and that if he had proceeded to disclose this hidden secret to other than its worthy people, they would have attributed him to the worship of idols, and people claiming Islam would have deemed his blood permissible,

seeing that the most heinous of the evil deeds they carry out is good in comparison to what they see from me of that which they are unable to bear and understand. So let the onlooker contemplate with the eye of his insight, stripped of all illusion, fanaticism, and imitation; let him contemplate this valuable speech and the meanings it infolds that perfectly apply to what we are upon, and what happened with us and happens against us from others.

For what reason would it even be said that we and the idol worshiper are the same in the event of our uncovering this secret to others, according to the saying of our master Zayn al-Abidin? Is it because we believe in the divinity of a person whom those others believe to be a created being, just as the material from which the idol is crafted is created? And that the worshipers of created things are, in his view, equal in belief and degree, whether the worshiped is the greatest of creations or the lowest of them? And is it for reasons other than these that we have been attributed by others to disbelief and have become vulnerable to killing, torture, and persecutions across the past centuries?