 The authors of the encyclopedia have also been confined to a Mu‘tazilite approach, or placed in an earlier age, under the Qarmat influence (Marquet 1977; Qarmats were the opponents of the Fatimid caliph ‘Abd Allâh al-Mahdî). So did Madelung many years ago; but considering his recent opinion, that the Rasâ’il repudiate the Fatimids’ claim to the imâmate on the basis of the fact that a new-born of eight months does not survive (that meaning that Muhammad ibn Ismâ‘îl did not reach the Prophet’s rank; the relevant texts are studied in Baffioni 2016 and 2018), Poonawala wonders how he could ascribe the epistles to the Qarâmita, since this is a a repudiation of the Qarâmita’s belief (Baffioni, Poonawala 2017, 305–307).