Of these sects, one only is to belong to the people of salvation, because they profess the right faith, and this right faith consists in believing the unity, the justice of God, the dignity of the prophet and of the Imám, and the resurrection, and in maintaining the truth of each of these five articles. As God Almighty thinks good to choose one among his servants, whom he sends as his prophet and apostle, that he may announce the right way to his subjects and creatures, he who is sent must be pure of all our venial and mortal sins; his word is to be a mediation between God and man; and the prophet, who is sent by God, finds it necessary to choose one like him to fill his place after him, and this substitute must also be pure of all venial and mortal sins; this substitute, or khalif, must choose one who may take his place after him, so that the centre of the face of the earth may never remain destitute of Imáms; and that, by the reasoning of wisdom and by his efforts, the decisions in the law may be preserved right, and the collection of proofs not lose its purity among them. Muhammed chose Alí, and appointed him his executor and khalif, and Alí, after Muhammed, was the best and wisest of all prophets of the family; the other Imáms (the blessing of God be upon them!) were his sons; as the first, so were the last, and at the end they remained the same as they had been in the beginning. The number of Imáms, according to the _Akhbár Nabi_, “History of the Prophets,” was twelve,[551] eleven of them passed to the other world, the twelfth is living for ever; at last he shall appear, and render the world as full of virtue as it is now full of injustice and tyranny. They say, that Abubekr, Omar, and Osman, and the children of Amîah, and Abasíah, their companions, usurped the dignity of Imáms, on which account they revile them. Some of them assert that Osmán burnt some volumes of the Koran, and threw away some of the surahs, which were in favor of Alí and of his descendants; of which the following is one:[552] In the name of the bountiful and merciful God. O you who have faith, believe in the two lights, _Muhammed_ and _Ali_, whom we have sent, and who recite our verses to you, and put you on your guard against the chastisement of the great day. These two lights _proceed_ the one from the other. As to myself, I understand and I know. Those who fulfil the order of God and of his prophet, such as it is given to them in the verses of the Koran, those shall enjoy the gardens of delight. As to those who, after having believed, became infidels by transgressing their compact, and what the prophet had stipulated for them, they shall be thrown into hell, because they have unjustly treated their own souls, and have disobeyed the preaching prophet. These shall be drenched with hot water.