Lit. ‘text.’ In Shi‘ism , it refers to Muhammad’s declaration of ‘Ali as his successor, and by extension, to the requirement that each imam should explicitly appoint the following Imam. The concept of nass was developed in the early decades of Shi‘ism, when several people claimed the imamat for themselves, especially in the times of imams Muhammad al–Baqir and Ja‘far al–Sadiq.
