ABSTRACT
One group, the later Twelver Shl'a,l adhered to the lineal continuation of the chain of Imams in the person of the son of the deceased Imam who, as he could not be found nor seen anywhere, was assumed to have been sent into occultation (ghayba) through divine providence. Again, this was not the first time such a fate had been proposed in the history of the Shl'a: Mu~ammad ibn al-ij:anafiya, instead of ending his life in the way customary among humans, is waiting inside the mountain Rag wa for the sign that will call him out among men to end the tyranny under which the faithful are suffering. Ever since then there had been cases in which the followers of an Imam who had died or could not be found waited for the return of their hidden saviour.
