The Mahdi Times September 2011 | Page 17

acts and ordered me to do likewise. Every year he used to take me to Hijra and only I could see him, for at that period of time of Islam there was only the Messenger of Allah (S), Khadija and myself as the third, as nobody else lived in the house. So I saw the light of revelation and the message and smelled the fragrance of prophecy." There are a great many indications from the lifetime of Imam Ali (as) after the death of the Prophet (S)  which reveal the Prophet's (S) private ideological training of Imam Ali (as) and reflect the effects and results of this private instruction. The Imam (as) was the man to whom the ruling leadership resorted for consultation and authority when they wished to solve some difficult problems, which they could not solve themselves. But we cannot find a single instance in the history of the Islamic experience during the time of the four caliphs in which the Imam (as) turned to someone else for an opin