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On October 12 the Nobel prize committee in Oslo announced that it was awarding the United Nations Organization and Kofi Annan, its secretary-general, a peace prize in recognition of their work in pursuit of “a better organized and a more peaceful world.” This is the first time that the UN as a whole and its acting head have received the award.

Propaganda is an important tool of war but, like everything else the Americans do, it is one which they wield crudely. On October 22 the Taliban reported that a hospital in Herat had been bombed, killing more than 100 people, including many children.

The US-British assault on the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin in Afghanistan does not appear to be going well, despite the use of ground troops on October 20 after two weeks of aerial attacks.

China, now a member of the World Trade Organisation, has made substantial political and economic gains at the APEC summit it recently hosted at Shanghai.

Russia and the US have established reasonably friendly ties in order to avoid conflict between their interests, and occasionally to cooperate for those interests.

The 11th Imam [AS] had an offspring who after a relatively short period disappeared from the physical plain in what is called the occultation. Before considering the life and circumstances of the 11th Imam [AS] a few additional remarks can be made concerning the immediate background, the circumstances of the Shi’ah in general, the institution of the Imamate in particular in this period, the period of the 9th, 10th and 11th Imams [AS], the period leading up to the occultation.

The cult for respect for the twelve Imams [AS] of Shi’ism is seen to be compatible with a polemical hostility to Shi’ism itself on certain occasions and with certain personalities. As late as the 19th century, there is a sufi when he arrived in Mashhad on his way to Kurdistan from India he composed two poems one in honour of Imam Ali al-Rida [AS], and one in condemnation of the Shi’i ‘Ulema of Mashhad without seeing any contradiction between these two, a complex and interesting topic.

The life and legacy of the 8th Imam – Imam Ali al-Rida [AS]. As was always the case, the death of the preceding Imam [AS] Imam Musa al-Kazim [AS] was accompanied with a degree of uncertainty and division within the community about the identity of the successor. On this occasion however the disagreement and confusion was relatively minor and short lived, almost the entirety of the Shi’i community came to accept Imam Ali al-Rida [AS] as the 8th Imam [AS] and as the successor to Imam Musa al-Kazim [AS].

Taqiyyah – prudential dissimulation, means concealing one’s identity as a Shi’ah under conditions thought to be dangerous, either for the Imam [AS] himself, for the Shi’i community as a whole or for one’s own person. The utility of this practise one may say was demonstrated in the short run by the Imams after Imam Jaffer al-Sadiq [AS]. Their fragile and hazardous position was made tenable in part by the practise of taqiyyah. However a problem arises, the observance of taqiyyah by the Imams themselves means that not all of their recorded utterances are to be taken as expressing their true opinions.

Last time looked at Imam Jaffer al-Sadiq [AS] the sixth of the twelve Holy Imams [AS]. His accomplishments in general and then with particular regards to the development of Shi’ism. Broke off with the consideration of the doctrine of Nass – the insistence that each Imam [AS] must have been nominated by his predecessor – in a witnessed nomination and preferably set down in writing. This process was retrospectively claimed by Imam Jaffer al-Sadiq [AS] to have occurred with each of the Imams [AS], and if in the case of Imam Ali [AS] the First Imam [AS] this had not occurred then it is because of the denial of the request of the Prophet [sAW] on his deathbed that writing implements be brought forth in his presence. It may be assumed or it is assumed by Shi’i authors for him to dictate once again his intentions for Ali [AS] to succeed him as the Imam [AS].