Fine Qualities

Ja'far, on his father's authority, told that his grandfather[*] reported God's messenger as saying, "Rejoice and rejoice again. My people are just like the rain, it not being known whether the last or the first of it is better; or it is like a garden from which a troop can be fed for a year, then another troop can be fed for a year, and perhaps the last troop which comes may be the broadest, deepest and finest. How can a people perish of which I am the first, the Mahdi the middle and the Messiah the last? But in the course of that there will be a crooked party which does not belong to me and to which I do not belong." *i.e., Ja'far as-Sadiq, whose father was Muhammad al-Baqir and whose grandfather was `Ali b. al-Husain Zain al-'Abidin. Razin transmitted it.