The first few months spent in the seminary can often be the most boring, as most of your time will be spent picking up the language which will become your main medium for studies. In my case, when I went to Qom, prior to engaging in any actual Islamic studies I had to spend a good part of half a year attending Persian classes. What I would try do to keep myself motivated is after the classes would finish (and you are looking at 4 to 5 hours a day minimum of intense language classes), I’d hibernate in the library and try to go through Islamic texts to see how much of the language I was getting on board.

I would hibernate myself for a few hours in the library. During this time I would try my luck at a variety of Persian books, some of them written by scholars and others were translations of classical Hadith collections. One day whilst I was rummaging through the books available I was fortunate to come across a copy of Kitab al-Ghayba by Nu’mani, and what stood out about this book was that it had the original Arabic with a line by line Farsi translation. It was a perfect book to test out just how much Persian I had picked up (as my Arabic comprehension was quite advanced).  There was also a translation available online so if I did get stuck anywhere I knew I’d be able to find a quick fix.

As I started to go through this book I found myself slowly fixated, not on the translation, but on the content of what the book contained. The book contains hundreds of traditions pertaining to the reappearance of the twelfth Imam, and these traditions are categorized into 25 chapters. The traditions start to get more and more remarkable as you go further into the book, and many traditions would leave me deep in thought over what on earth was going to happen when the Imam re-appeared.

One chapter that really stood out was chapter 21 which mentions traditions of how the Imam will be abandoned by those who awaited him. One tradition says: “When the Imam appears, those, who have thought themselves as his followers, will apostatize and those, who are somehow like the worshippers of the sun and the moon, will believe in him.” This tradition left me in thought for quite a while, and at times made me quite disturbed. How could those who wait for the Imam leave him? And how could those who worship the sun and moon, a description which seemed intuitive to me referred to atheists or agnostics, join his movement?

During those early days of my studies I would think over this long and hard, I would try to engage with fellow seminarians and teachers, probing them for their thoughts on what this could mean. Some denied it and questioned the authenticity of these traditions, others spoke of it merely as the unavoidable cycles of history (Moses was denied by the people who waited for him, so was the Prophet, so too will be the Imam etc.). Others found themselves unable to offer a clear or coherent answer, and I could see in their facial reactions the same confusion that had initially fronted me. Nevertheless, I’m sure, unlike me, they were able to find a convincing answer that allowed them to put this matter to rest.

Fast forward 6 years later and it was quite a surprise to hear a favorite scholar of mine, (Ay Mohallati, an advanced teacher in the seminary and an outspoken cultural critic), tackle this subject head on without mincing his words. While I don’t agree with everything he has said I found his approach and emphasis on certain areas quite informative. And what better way to kick start this blog by sharing one of my first intellectual challenges on my own personal journey of knowledge.

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The original lecture can be found in the telegram channel of Ay. Mohallati here.

There are numerous questions asked in respect to the Imam and the drastic changes that will come about when he reappears. The first question that is often asked has to do with the events that will unfold after his return, the most notable event being the widespread establishment of justice. However, this monumental change that will take place in human civilization is predicated on a transformation in people’s worldview, theology and value system. In our narrations we see this notion that upon his return the Imam will bring a “new Islam”, [and it is upon this “new Islam” that humans will begin a new, just, civilization].

What is the meaning of this “new Islam”? And what are the differences between this “new Islam” and the “old Islam”? What changes will take place in the beliefs and doctrines of the Muslims? This is the subject on which I want to spend some time looking at today. I will begin by mentioning several traditions which talk about this phenomenon and then I will analyze them.

The phrases “new command” and “new Islam” are used again and again in numerous traditions. A number of researchers have attempted to figure out what exactly is meant by this. Some of the traditions are:

يهدم ما كان قبله كما هدم رسول الله أمر الجاهلية، و يستأنف الاسلام جديدا

“He will destroy what was [practiced] before him just like the Prophet destroyed the practice of Jahiliyya, and he shall bring about a new Islam.”

إذا قام القائم ، جاء بأمر جديد كما دعا رسول الله (صلى الله عليه وآله) في بدو الإسلام إلى أمر جديد

“When the Imam appears he will bring a new command just like the Prophet, at the onset of Islam, called people to a new command.”

 The phrase “new command” that has been used here is quite extraordinary. If the Imam was to practice and implement Islam as people had practiced and recognized it, then it wouldn’t be described as “new”. The Prophet didn’t go to the Arabs and tell them to practice what they already believe, rather he changed their beliefs. The Prophet didn’t say practice the rituals they inherited from their ancestors, rather he brought new practices.

So far we have seen two phrases used, “new Islam” and “new command”. In addition to these two we also find a third expression, that of a “new invitation”. We see this in a tradition where Abu Basir asks Imam Sadiq the meaning of “Islam being alone”:

الإسلام بدأ غریباً و سیعود غریباً، کما بدأ، فطوبی للغرباء      

“Islam started alone and abandoned, and it shall return to such a state – glad tidings to the lonely ones”.

Imam Sadiq continues:

یستأنف الداعی منا دعاءً جدیداً کما دعا إلیه رسول‌الله

“The Imam will come with a new invitation, just like the Prophet came”.

These expressions that describe the new phenomenon that the Imam will bring cause us to wonder as to what exactly is going to happen. If the Islam that the Imam will bring is going to be the same as the Islam that we know of, there’s no meaning in saying that people’s belief will be changed. If so, what does the phrase “new invitation” refer to?

There is a critical point hidden within the meaning of all these expressions, that during the time of the Imam’s occultation a distortion occurred, and the Imam, prior to enacting anything, will first have to correct these baseless and wrong distortions. The Imam will present the “real” version of Islam, and until he does so, there will be no possibility of implementing Islam as it ought to be implemented. Firstly, people need to have the right understanding of Islam, and only then can there be right actions. The Imam will start his work by bringing about a religious intellectual paradigm shift in the minds of the people.

This is an understanding that numerous scholars of the past have given, that our understanding of religion needs to change, and all the errors that we have come to through our misinterpretation of religion needs correcting. It should be noted that this isn’t a small feat, and it is something that won’t come about easily. Why is that? Because there will be a group of individuals, who are widely recognised as religious scholars, who will dogmatically defend those distorted beliefs and stand in brazen opposition to the Imam’s attempt at reform. Under no circumstances will these “scholars” ever accept the new Islam that the Imam will bring or give up their own ideas and practices. The reasons why they will end up defying the Imam are up for debate, perhaps it is because they presented a view of Islam to the people that furthered their own interests, and through these distorted beliefs they were able to come to positions of power which they do not want to give up. The “new Islam” that the Imam brings will destroy the religious status quo and their power, and this is something they cannot afford.

In relation to this there is an eye-opening saying that many of our notable scholars have mentioned. To name a few, you can find this quote in the works Mulla Sadra, Faydh Kashani and Shaykh Bahai. The saying is:

ولولا أن السيف بيده لأفتى الفقهاء بقتله

“If the Imam did not have the sword in his hand [to protect himself], the jurists would have passed a fatwa calling for his death”.

This sentence has been mentioned by many scholars, some have mentioned it having understood it to have come from a tradition whereas others understood it just as a scholarly opinion. This saying has been so widely spread that it can even be found in surprising places, an example being the Futuhat al-Makiyya of ibn Arabi. There is a chapter within the book dedicated exclusively to Imam Mahdi, his companions and the events that will occur when he appears. Within this chapter ibn Arabi mentions something which our own Shi’i scholars have also replicated in their own works:

 إذا خرج هذا الإمام المهدي فليس له عدو مبين إلا الفقهاء خاصة فإنهم لا تبقي لهم رياسة و لا تمييز عن العامة و لا يبقى لهم علم بحكم إلا قليل و يرتفع الخلاف من العالم في الأحكام بوجود هذا الإمام

“When the Imam returns there will be no open enemy for him except for the jurists, for nothing will remain for them of power nor will there be anything to differentiate them from the layman. Nothing shall remain for them of religious knowledge except a little. Differences of opinion and arguments over rulings will cease to exist in the world with the presence of the Imam”.

Here ibn Arabi gives two reasons why the jurists will oppose the Imam. Firstly it has to do with the social standing and privilege that they will be worried about losing. Secondly it has to do with their manipulation of Islam which will be exposed by the presence of the Imam. A side point out of interest is that I have seen this quote mentioned by Ay. Bahjat in his works too.

Here we can ask a pertinent question – what differences are there between what the jurists understand and propagate of religion and what the Imam understands. What is the reason that the jurists will adamantly reject and scheme against the Imam? Can we take an educated guess to see where exactly this conflict will arise from? Is it possible for us to grasp the pillars on which the “new Islam” of the Imam will be based on?

1. Obsession with rituals and form

Yes, if we were to spend some time on the Islamic corpus we could understand some of the fundamental areas in which this conflict will spring about from. The first area in which we can see drastic change happening has to do with the form and manifestation of religious rituals and practices. This is the biggest area of difference between the two opposing types of religious understanding. We have a reliable tradition reported by Shaykh Saduq where it is narrated from the Prophet:

سَيَأتى عَلى اُمَّتى زَمانٌ لا يَبقى مِنَ القُرآنِ إلّا رَسمُهُ ، وَ لا مِنَ الإِسلامِ إلَا اسمُهُ ، يُسَمَّونَ بِهِ و هُم أبعَدُ النّاسِ مِنهُ ، مَساجِدُهُم عامِرَةٌ و هِىَ خَرابٌ مِنَ الهُدى ، فُقَهاءُ ذلِكَ الزَّمانِ شَرُّ فُقَهاءَ تَحتَ ظِلِّ السَّماءِ ، مِنهُم خَرَجَتِ الفِتنَةُ و إلَيهِم تَعودُ

“There shall a come a time for my people that nothing shall remain of the Qur’an except it’s script, and nothing shall remain of Islam except it’s name which people will call themselves by. And those who call themselves by the name of Islam will be the furthest [in reality] from it! The mosques will be lively and full of people but they will be empty of guidance. The jurists at that time are the most evil jurists under the sky, from them tribulations have come and to them tribulations will return”.

This tradition is astonishing in so many different ways. People are still practicing religion but they have ignored the reality of religion, they cling on to the rituals and superficial forms of religion but have thrown aside the essence of what religion was meant to be. The attack at the end on the jurists highlights that the problem is because of them – the mosques are full of people but empty of guidance because the scholars are at fault. The ending of the tradition is heavy to say, and quite difficult to comprehend, that the problems can be laid squarely at the feet of the scholars. The existence of mosques does not create a religious society, it is righteous scholars that do that. A mosque in reality is nothing more than just a collection of bricks and concrete, this doesn’t bring about faith, what brings about faith and belief are godly individuals who have experienced faith and are there to guide others.

This tradition highlights that there will come a time, a time often referred to as “the end of times”, and a time understood to be associated with the Imam’s return, where there will be a change in the type of religious practice, and this change will be met with fierce and aggressive resistance from a number of jurists. What problem will these scholars have? Why can’t they accept the Imam? Why would they pass fatawa against the Imam if they could?  

We could look at a few examples that could help us understand a bit better what might transpire. Our first example has to do with the mosques. In our times mosques have become symbols of obscene wealth and are directly opposed to the values of what mosques in the time of the Prophet stood for. There are many mosques that are majestic, huge, full of visitors, but what value does it actually bring to the faith? When we look at the bigger picture that the mosque plays in Islam, we will see that the mosque is the first and most prominent symbol of a place of worship. I had discussed this issue a few years ago and it caused quite a lot of controversy, I didn’t say anything more than the fact that we should run and build our mosques just like the Prophet did, we should return our mosques from their opulence to the humility of the Prophetic model. The Prophet’s mosque was very simple, and according to reports he did not even allow for it to have a fixed roof. You might argue that the Prophet did this because the economic situation of the people did not allow for more to be done. But this isn’t true, the people were ready, they wanted to build a fixed roof and create it bigger and better if possible but the Prophet said no. Even at the time of the 5^th and 6^th Imam when the economic situation of the Muslims was very good, still the Imams insisted that all mosques should replicate the Prophetic example and nothing more.

One of the first things the Imam will do is return the mosques to how they were at the time of the Prophet. And all of these grand buildings that have been called “mosques” but in reality have nothing do with God will be destroyed. Shaykh Mufid narrates a tradition to this effect:

إذا قام القائم لم يبق مسجد على وجه الارض له شرف إلا هدمها وجعلها جما

“When the Imam returns there shall not remain a mosque on the face of the earth except that he will utterly destroy it and flatten it”.

If a persons religious understanding is based on the form and physical appearance of these buildings then it is clear to see where a conflict with the Imam can be triggered. Many scholars will try to stop the Imam from doing this and attack his type of religion. If someone was to do this now it would cause chaos and absolute pandemonium. Even just mentioning this topic by referring to the traditions is a tough pill to swallow. We have another tradition by Shaykh Tusi:

إذا قامَ القائِمُ يَهدِمُ المَنارَ وَالمَقاصيرَ الَّتي فِي المَساجِدِ

“When the Imam returns he will destroy the minarets and rooms that are in the mosques”.

All this money that gets spent in making these mosques as grand and extravagant as possible have no function. The Imam will come and correct this understanding of religion that we have which is fixated purely on forms and appearances. If this is how the Imam is going to treat the mosques then what about all the other buildings and structures that have been erected in the name of religion? And have had millions and millions of public money spent on them?

2. Economic Justice

Another area which is going to cause conflict between the Imam’s understanding of religion and that of the layman is on the issue of justice and equality. When we say “justice”, people have a pre-conceived notion of what it is and they often argue that people will be naturally willing to accept the justice of the Imam. This isn’t the case. There are specific qualities of the justice that the Imam will bring which may make it unacceptable for many religious scholars. One of those qualities is economic equality.

يقسم المال صحاحا قال له رجل: ما صحاحا قال: بالسوية بين الناس

  “The Imam will apportion the money correctly. A man asked: what do you mean by correctly? The Prophet replied: Equally between people”.

How many people in our society are living below the poverty line, unable to put food on the table every day. And how many people in our society have wealth so large that you can’t even count it? In this “Islamic country” is it possible that you could have people who starve and go without food whilst having so many obscenely wealthy people? When the Imam comes and changes the entire society and makes sure wealth is equally distributed – is it not plausible that there will be a group of people who take issue with this and try to prevent the Imam? It is narrated:

كنت عند ابى عبدالله(ع) فذكر مواساة الرجل لأخوانه وما يجب عليهم فدخلنى من ذلك امر عظيم فقال: انما ذلك اذا قام قائمنا وجب عليهم ان يجهزوا اخوانهم و يقوّوهم

“I was with Imam Sadiq when he mentioned the importance of supporting your brother and what is obligatory upon you in that regard. I was absolutely shocked by what he had to say. He then said when the Imam reappears, he will make it obligatory on everyone to support and help their brothers”.

The Imam will not allow anyone to shirk the responsibility they have to one another. Unfortunately there is a misconception here that some people think, they assume that our obligation to help is only with fellow Shias, and when it comes to non-Shias there is no obligation of helping. It is for this reason that the Imam is returning, to help open our intellectual horizons and free us up from our dogmatic shackles. The Imam will come and destroy this thinking, help and assistance is not linked to the religion you have.

أقبل رجل الي أبي جعفر(ع) و أنا حاضر فقال : رحمك الله اقبض مني هذه الخمس ماة درهم فضعها في مواضعها فانها زكاة مالي ، فقال أبوجعفر(ع): “بل خذها أنت فضعها في جيرانك و الايتام و المساكين و في اخوانك من المسلمين، انما يكون هذا اذا قام قائمنا فانه يقسم بالسوية و يعدل في خلق الرحمان : البر منهم و الفاجر

Jabir narrates: A man came to Imam Sadiq and I was present. The man said: may Allah have mercy on you, take these 500 dirhams which is my khums. The 6^th Imam said to him: Take it yourself and give it to your neighbors, the orphans, the poor, and your Muslim brothers. For surely when the Imam appears he will split the wealth equally and treat all creation justly, the righteous and the criminal.

When someone is struggling to put food on their table, when their stomach is empty and they cannot provide for their family, there is no talk about what religion they are, what faith they have. Not at all. When the Imam appears he will ensure that everyone is taken care of, irrespective of whether they are righteous or not. Do we have the ability to accept this idea? Or will we reject this idea that doesn’t differentiate between believers and non-believers? There is a problem that we find in the religiosity of many people in that it is heavily dogmatic and obsessively sectarian.  We assume that the only ones that matter are those who think like us, everyone else doesn’t matter. It will be hard for many who grew up with these false beliefs to sit by and accept the Imam breaking them.

3. End to Sectarianism

The third area which will be reformed by the Imam is the way we deal with other Muslims who have different opinions. As we have all experienced and seen, the differences between Muslims has become sources of constant strife and never ending conflict. To the point where some are not hesitant to excommunicate and do takfir of the other. This behavior has to be rectified, and when the Imam comes and puts an end to the open cursing and insults we have for one another, it’s obvious that there will be a group of people not happy with this. There are a group of people whose entire identity has been created on cursing and insulting others, when the Imam comes and tries to fix this behavior they will oppose him fiercely. There will be people who will argue with the Imam and defend their own hateful words and actions by saying that this is what the religion wants from them! There is a tradition reported by both Nu’mani and Tusi:

لا يكون الأمر الذي تنتظرونه حتى يبرأ بعضكم من بعض، ويتفل بعضكم في وجوه بعض، ويشهد بعضكم على بعض بالكفر، ويلعن بعضكم بعضاً. فقال الحسين عليه السلام الخير كلّه في ذلك الزمان، يقوم قائمنا، ويدفع ذلك كلّه

The time you are waiting for will not come until you disassociate from one another, spit in the face of one another [out of anger and enmity], testify to the others disbelief and curse one another. When the Imam reappears he will do away with all of this [inter-Muslim fighting and conflict].

This tradition highlights how we as a community have been raised and nurtured – we have been raised within an environment of hatred and dispute, and we have become people whose only ability to treat others is to lash out with hatred and enmity. We have not been able to nurture ourselves on the principles of mercy and mutual respect. Unfortunately we do not hesitate to curse one another and consider the other out of Islam. This very year, in the city of Qom, we had a leader of the Friday prayer, who instead of upholding the etiquette required of a scholar, decided to curse well known public scholars on the basis of some political opinions.

It’s clear that those people whose understanding of religion does not extend beyond cursing, hatred and creating conflict amongst others, when they face the Imam they will oppose him. These people are trapped in their own twisted understanding of religion and will argue that this person cannot be the Imam. You and I need to pay attention to this point, that the conflict that I mentioned previously that will arise between the Imam and a group of people doesn’t pertain to a conflict between the Imam and “oppressors” or “imperialists”. Rather this conflict will be of an internal nature, it will be between people who both adhere to religion. For this reason, the Imam will first have to come and change the nature of religious thinking before he can then move on to his bigger mission.

We have created a religious system that has its own agenda and caters to our own interests and power. Our situation has got to such a pathetic point that we are unable to tell people that we are fallible, we are human, we make mistakes. Instead what we do is throw all our mistakes at the feet of the Imam, and by claiming that our government is linked to the Imam and can therefore do no wrong, we throw the Imam under the bus instead of taking accountability. Instead of sacrificing ourselves for religion, we sacrifice religion for ourselves. For many of us, the 12^th Imam is just a tool we are using to consolidate our grip on people. We hide ourselves behind the Imam so that no one can try hold us to account for the mistakes we make.

I really don’t want to start quoting for you what has been said by different people in the media like this, some of it isn’t reliable so I won’t do that. But what you can do is go to the website of the Guardian Council (shura nigahban) and look at the speech of Ayatollah Yazdi yourself. I am quoting something that is reliable and accessible to the public, not things that have been said in secret and are factually suspect. Go and have a look at his speech on the 10^th of Shahrivar 1391. He gave a speech a day before which was then reproduced on this website. He gave this talk in Isfahan in the 3^rd annual convention of a gathering of religious and political leaders, and the topic was discussing the Mahdi. What was the content of this talk? He said that the Imam is controlling everything going in the country, and he has full knowledge of what is happening. And if anything goes wrong the Imam will be there to save the day and prevent it, so don’t worry (if you see something you think is wrong). Do we have a verse in the Quran to support this? No. Do we have a tradition that we could infer this idea from, that the Imam will prevent his representatives from making mistakes? No. How many people in history have lied and falsely claimed prophethood or Imamate, and mislead millions of people without the Imam ever stepping in to save the day. The presence of false claimants and people using Prophecy or Imamate to mislead others is indisputable, and so is the damage and chaos that they caused (which no one prevented). How can it be that a jurist, who has the destiny of the country in his hand, can be so reckless in his ideas and present things that have no evidence as fact.  

Now, the story that is often repeated (as Ay Yazdi did), is that Shaykh Mufid accidentally gave an edict that a lady who died whilst still pregnant should be buried with the baby still inside her. The story goes that the Imam was aware of this and prevented this from happening, Shaykh Mufid was a bit traumatized by this whole event and decided never to pass a ruling again. The Imam sent a message to him and told him to continue giving rulings and the Imam, in this story, reassures Mufid that he will protect any future mistakes he makes. Using this story we want to create a fable and tell the people that even though we don’t have a direct link to the Imam, at the end of the day, we are his representatives and he will protect us. From here what happens is they take this story and start applying it to different events, such as the election problems in 2009. This is the pathetic situation that we are in. This is how we use the 12^th Imam, this is the Imam that exonerates all our mistakes, white washes all our errors.

Here you might ask, but what about the story of Shaykh Mufid? In which book is it recorded. I tell you none. This is a story that has been popularised in the last 2 or 3 centuries in which a number of unreliable books which recount the stories of our the scholars have been produced. In here it has appeared. There is no reliable book in which this story is narrated in which can be connected to the time of Shaykh Mufid. On top of that, this is a basic and straight forward problem that any scholar worth his value would know, you do not bury a live baby. Shaykh Mufid didn’t know this? In which book of his did he give this ruling even? Even lets say hypothetically that the Imam did appear somewhere and correct someone, we won’t deny this, it’s possible. However, from the beginning of our fiqh till the end of it, scholars have given all sorts of different rulings on the same matter, and in all of these different rulings we can say with conviction that most of them are wrong and one will be right, (why did the Imam not interfere here)? Can we make this story a principle in our ijtihad or in the way we govern a country, that if we make a mistake you can be rest assured the Imam will come and fix it? On top of that, in this era where the Imam purportedly has so many different representatives each with their own unique approach, which of these scholars can tell us what is right and what is wrong?

If you go back to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution you will find on one side is Akhund Khorasani who was in favor of it, and on the other side you have Syed Yazdi who was ardently opposed to it. Two massive jurists each with their own vast influence and prestige, if we are to use this reasoning, one of them would say the 12^th Imam is on my side, the other would say no, the 12^th Imam is on my side. Look at the nonsense this line of argument takes us. Why is it that when we are unable to provide sufficient evidence we must compensate and appeal with this reasoning? Why do we appeal to the Imam to justify our shortcomings? The time for these fables and myths have past. How remarkable that we try and convolute these tales to support the way we govern and rule.

Going back to the speech, after Ay Yazdi relates this story he says “the Imam is continuing to act on his obligation and continues to guide his representatives, even in this era…the jurists are the representatives of the Imam and through them the Imam is ruling over the people”. So then it is fair to say that the situation we are in now is because of the Imam, as according to Ay Yazdi, it is the Imam who is in charge of everything. You think when the Imam comes these types of scholar will not rise against him? By that I mean this ideology, this way of thinking, not the person. This isn’t a personal critique against Ay Yazdi, it’s about whoever holds on to this way of thinking. In the annals of history, whoever has used the name of the Imam to stand on the shoulders of people and rule over them, it’s obvious that when the Imam returns and reclaims the power for himself, they will stand against him. These people are after power and material gains, unlike Shaykh Ansari, who would not have stood against the Imam. He had no inclination to power or the world like others do.

The first thing the Imam will do when he comes, before he does anything else, before he takes his message to the entire world or anything else like that, he will eradicate this type of thinking from those who claim to have been waiting for him. This reform that the Imam will have to carry out will come at a great cost. May God have mercy on the late martyr Mutahhari, who in his memoirs wrote that when people speak of jurists standing against the Imam, what is being intended is Sunni jurists. My issue with his comment is this, why are you saying that these people are going to be exclusively Sunni jurists?  Rather it will be those who have studied within the Shia tradition, and have used their power unwisely, they will stand against him and issue edicts against the Imam.

Going back to the beginning now, the first thing we wanted to look at, which was what religion would the Imam bring. I would say it is going to be the true religion, the real religion, the unadulterated religion, the real tradition of the Prophet, the real Qur’an. Despite the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet being accessible to us today, our understanding of it has been polluted with errors and fables. The Imam will first eradicate all of these misunderstandings that we have projected onto religion. From here we can see how huge the difference is between someone who claims that he is ready for his reappearance and someone who has actually internalized and has the capacity to accept his reappearance.