a criticism of the theory of "internal imamat in early shiites"

the book, the divine guide in early shi'ism, by dr. mohammad ali amir mo'ezzi is one important work in the study of shiism in the west. employing the method of phenomenology, amir mo'ezzi is concerned with the essence of imamiah shiism by appeal to the early and original works of imamiah (in particular, hadith collections). in his view, the essence of shiism is the theory of imamat and in particular, an internal interpretation thereof. he thinks that because of taqiyah in the apostles of imams the best way to discover the internal thoughts of imams is to consult the views of qalis (exaggerationists about imams). fundamentally there’s no conflict between the doctrines of qalis and imams; what went wrong about qalis was their revelation of the mysteries of imams. in this paper after a review of this book, we present criticisms to it. in general, amir mo'ezzi's idea in demonstrating imamiah internalism is not clear, and in some cases there is not enough evidence. the main problem, nonetheless, is the thought that the teachings of imams and qalis are the same; there are many pieces of counter-evidence to this view.