Footnotes
1. Sayyid Najm al-Din is not known other than in this text, but the commentators point out that this has no negative effect on the chain since the text is mutawatir and of unquestioned authority. This is a chain of permission and not of transmission; in other words, the text itself has reached us by many different routes, but permission to teach the present text in this exact form was handed down by the figures being mentioned.
The reason this particular chain is mentioned was suggested in the introduction. I would add that it is inconceivable that this chain is a deliberate forgery, since no forger can have been so incompetent. Of the twelve figures mentioned (at the beginning and in the second chain toward the end of the preface), five are unknown, four cannot be identified with certainty, and one is known to have been unreliable.
2. There is some confusion as to the identity of the 'us' at the beginning of this chain, because it might be either of two scholars who figure in the various chains of transmission of the Sahifa. Shaykh-i Baha'i, one of the many authors of commentaries on the Sahifa, maintains that 'us' refers to 'Ali ibn al-Sukun (i.e., Abu l-Hasan 'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sukun al-Hilli, (d. c. 606/1209).
In his glossary on the Sahifa, Mir Damad writes that it is 'Amid al-Ru'asa' Hibat Allah ibn Hamid ibn Ahmad ibn Ayyub al-Hilli (d. 610/1213-14). To prove his point he quotes from the manuscript of al-Shahid al-Awwal, who had collated his copy with that of Ibn al-Sukun, on which 'Amid al-Ru'asa' had made certain annotations in the year 603/1206. Cf. Aqa Buzurg, al-Dhari'a, s.v. Al-Sahifat al-Sajjadiyya.
3. He was the son-in-law of Shaykh al-Ta'ifa Abu Ja'far al-Tusi (d. 460/1067-8) and an official at the shrine of 'Ali in Najaf.
4. Sayyid ''Alikhan writes that al-'Ukbari does not seem to be mentioned in the books of Shi'ite biographies, but al-Sam'ani mentions him in al-Ansab (adding ibn al-Husayn to his name after ibn Ahmad) and gives his date of death as 472/1079-80.
5. Sayyid '''Alikhan quotes four sources on Abu l-Mufaddal as a muhaddith, all of which question his reliability: Najashi, Shaykh al-Ta'ifa al-Tusi, Ibn al-Ghada'iri, and Ibn Dawud.
6. Najashi praises his reliability and mentions a number of works by him. He died in 308/921 at the age of more than ninety (Sayyid '''Alikhan).
7. According to Sayyid '''Alikhan, nothing is known about him. In his notes on his Persian translation, Sha'rani suggests that here some of the authorities originally mentioned in the text may have been dropped, since only three figures are mentioned over a period of 251 years.
8. Najashi mentions an Ali ibn al-Nu'man al-A'lam al-Nakhai who was a companion of the eighth Imam, Ridha (d. 203/818).
9. Neither 'Umayr ibn Mutawakkil nor his father Mutawakkil ibn Harun are known. However both Najashi and Shaykh al-Tusi speak of al-Mutawakkil ibn 'Umayr ibn al-Mutawakkil as the transmitter of the Sahifa from Yahya ibn Zayd, and they provide a chain of authority leading from him to themselves different from that in the present text. As Sha'rani points out (Sahifa, p. 5), given their early dates and their agreement, the name they provide is to be preferred over the Present text.
10. This would have been in the year 122/740. As explained in the introduction, after the death of Zayn al-Abidin's son and successor, Muhammad al-Baqir, his son Zayd revolted against the Umayyad authorities and was killed. According to the account being related here, Mutawakkil ibn Harun (or more properly, Mutawakkil ibn 'Umayr) met Zayd's son Yahya shortly before he was killed while continuing his father's revolt.
11. 13:39. According to Sayyid ''Alikhan, by quoting this verse, Yahya is suggesting that even if this is the divine command known to al-Sadiq, God may change it. This is the Shi'ite doctrine of bad'a, according to which God may appear to change His decree for His creatures. Imam Ja'far himself quotes this verse to prove the possibility of bad'a.
12. As noted in the introduction, the use here of the expression Al-Sahifat al-kamila suggests that the Sahifa was called by this term from earliest times. In explaining the expression, Sayyid '''Alikhan quotes a passage employing it from Ma'alim al-ulama of Ibn Shahrashub (d. 588/1192).
13. In notes to his Persian translation, Sha'rani tells us that the term meant a scroll wound around an iron rod, on the ends of which were placed iron locks, often sealed with wax.
14. Muhammad is better known as al-Nafs al-Zakiyya. He was designated as the Mahdi by his father and many swore allegiance to him, including al-Mansur, who later became the first Abbasid caliph. Muhammad and Ibrahim revolted with a good deal of popular support when the Abbasids tried to make them accept their authority. Muhammad, who was supported by the people of Medina, was killed in a fierce battle in 145/762, and Ibrahim, who was supported by the Zaydite and Mu'tazilite circles of Kufa and Basra, was killed a few months later. Cf. Ja'fari, The Origins and Early Development, pp. 269-71, 275-6.
15. Isma'il was the eldest son of Imam Ja'far and his designated successor. However, he died before his father, who then appointed his second son Musa as the Imam after himself. The Isma'ilis follow Isma'il as Imam rather than Musa maintaining that the former's appointment was valid and that the imamate remained in his family.
16. 4:58
17. An oft-repeated formula found in many hadith.
18. 17:60. The Qur'an commentators offer at least three possible interpretations for this vision. Concerning the third, Baydawi writes 'It is also said that the Prophet saw a group of the Umayyads climbing his pulpit and jumping upon it like monkeys. So he said "This is their share of this world; they will be given it for accepting Islam".
According to this interpretation, what is meant by a trial for men is what happened during their time' (Anwar al-tanzil, commentary on 17:60). The Shi'ite commentator Tabarsi also offers this as a third possibility, providing two hadith to support it (Majma' al-bayan). Sayyid '''Alikhan quotes from Baydawi and others to support this interpretation, while offering Ibn 'Abbas among others as authority for the statement that the 'accursed tree' refers to the Umayyads.
19. 97:1-3. Tirmidhi offers a hadith going back to al-Hasan ibn 'Ali that supports this interpretation of one thousand months as referring to the Umayyads (Tafsir sura 97, 1).
20. 14:28-9.
21. i.e., the Twelfth Imam, he who will 'stand up' (Qa'im) in the Truth for the Truth and defeat the enemies of the Truth.
22. The speaker here is al-'Ukbari (above, verse 3), who is now relating another chain through which he received the Sahifa from Abu l-Mufaddal (verse 3).
23. He is unknown in the books of biography.
24. He is also unknown.
25. In other words, the chapter headings as mentioned in the text, which are often slightly different from the chapter headings mentioned above, are in al-Hasani's words (that is, al-Sharif Aba 'Abd Allah, mentioned in verse 4).
26. Here again by 'us' is meant al-'Ukbari.