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The Translator’s Preface Among the religious traditions of mankind the Shi‘ah tradition within Islam is unmatched in its rich corpus of devotional texts (duc¡ and ziy¡rah literature) handed down from the original teachers and leaders of the faith, the Prophet Mu¦ammad and the Imams of his family, the Ahl al-Bayt. This tradition begins with the Qur’¡n—its opening s£rah being an essential part of the Muslim ritual prayer (that is, ¥al¡h, as opposed to duc¡ in the sense of supplication and petition-ary texts)—which, besides citing many prayers made by the former prophets, beginning with Adam, suggests several supplications for the devout. In accordance with the Qur’¡nic teaching, Islam views itself not as a novel and insular phenomenon in the religious history of mankind, but as the culmi-nating link in a prophetic chain that began with Adam, the first man and recipi-ent of Divine revelations, and, after a cataclysmic phase marked by the ministry of Noah, which signified the end of an era and beginning of a new, culminated in the figure of Abraham, whom the Qur’¡n describes as a follower of Noah...