--- title: "When the Light Was Hidden: The Preservers" event: "The Lantern of the Path" session_number: 63 published_at: "2026-04-08" canonical_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/when-the-light-was-hidden-the-preservers" event_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path" type: "event-session" scripture_reference: "Quran, Surah Al-Kahf (The Cave), Chapter 18, Verse 13" --- # When the Light Was Hidden: The Preservers *Session 63 of [The Lantern of the Path](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path) — 8 April 2026* Mahdawiyyah, Part 19 · The Architecture of Guidance, Part 3 In the same year, one door closed forever and one book was finished — and the timing was too exact to be an accident. In 329 AH, the fourth deputy received the Imam's final tawqi': no more letters, no more deputies, the occultation complete. That same year, in Baghdad, Shaykh al-Kulayni finished twenty years compiling al-Kafi — "the Sufficient", not "the Complete" — sixteen thousand narrations gathered from notebooks scattered across Qom, Kufa and Rey for two centuries. Then he died. Behind him lay a second, deeper crisis. Without a living deputy to write to, ordinary believers at the far edges of the Muslim world had begun asking a question no hadith collection could settle: is the Imam even there at all? Shaykh al-Saduq — born, the tradition holds, because his father petitioned the third deputy for a son and the Hidden Imam prayed for him by name — travelled from Qom to the edges of Central Asia and back, meeting that doubt directly. He answered it with Qur'anic precedent in Kamal al-Din (Khidr, Jonah, the Sleepers of the Cave, all hidden by God before) and with a law book for believers with no scholar to ask: Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, "For He Who Has No Access to a Jurist". If no one can see him, how do you know the Imam is still there? What the evening covers The final tawqi'. The letter that closed the minor occultation in 329 AH and named the scholars the Imam's proof. Al-Kafi. Twenty years, sixteen thousand narrations, finished the same year the door closed. Born of a prayer. Shaykh al-Saduq's birth, and the Imam's own supplication that preceded it. A book for those with no scholar nearby. Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, and what its title was meant to say. ## Scripture > نَّحۡنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيۡكَ نَبَأَهُم بِٱلۡحَقِّۚ إِنَّهُمۡ فِتۡيَةٌ ءَامَنُواْ بِرَبِّهِمۡ وَزِدۡنَٰهُمۡ هُدٗى > > It is We who relate to you, [O Muhammad], their story in truth. Indeed, they were youths who believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance — *Quran, Surah Al-Kahf (The Cave), Chapter 18, Verse 13* ## Programme - [Watch the full session](https://youtu.be/bIcgTH1wPO0) - [Sermon: When the Light Was Hidden: The Preservers](https://youtu.be/bIcgTH1wPO0) - [Nohe: I Can't Believe Your Anger, My Leader](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHpHDV-nOu4) - [Ziyarah: Ziyarat Aal-e-Yasin](https://youtu.be/uSJNHMq3oYs?si=PKBRrMLLZOtXX_Hq) ## Other sessions in this event - [Session 69 — Shaykh al-Ta'ifa](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/shaykh-al-taifa) — 12 August 2026 - [Session 26 — Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba: A Life of Strategic Sacrifice](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/imam-hasan-al-mujtaba-a-life-of-strategic-sacrifice) — 20 May 2026 - [Session 68 — The World That Surrounded Them](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-world-that-surrounded-them) — 13 May 2026 - [Session 67 — Sayyed al-Murtada and the Twenty-Three Years](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/sayyed-al-murtada-and-the-twenty-three-years) — 6 May 2026 - [Session 66 — The Pen and the Sword of the Intellect](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-pen-and-the-sword-of-the-intellect) — 29 April 2026 - [Session 65 — Two Sons, One Mother, One Teacher](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/two-sons-one-mother-one-teacher) — 22 April 2026 - [Session 64 — The Beneficial One: Shaykh al-Mufid](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-beneficial-one-shaykh-al-mufid) — 15 April 2026 - [Session 62 — The University of al-Sadiq: Four Thousand Students and a Living Imam](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-university-of-al-sadiq-four-thousand-students-and-a-living-imam) — 1 April 2026 - [Session 61 — Building Before the Builder Returns](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/building-before-the-builder-returns) — 25 March 2026 - [Session 60 — The Antidote Applied](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-antidote-applied) — 18 March 2026 - [Session 59 — The Poison Identified](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-poison-identified) — 11 March 2026 - [Session 58 — The Contemporary Codification](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-contemporary-codification) — 25 February 2026 --- _Read this session on the web: https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/when-the-light-was-hidden-the-preservers_