26. My father said: Sa1d ibn `Abd Allah said: Muhammad ibn `Isa said I read in the letter of `Ali ibn Bilal that he asked the man, i.e. Abu al-Hasan al-Kadhim , regarding the prohibition of discussing matters of religion which were transmitted from his ancestors. Your followers [mawali] have interpreted `the speakers’ to mean that those who are not well-versed about a topic are prohibited from speaking about it and that whoever is well-versed about a topic is not prohibited from speaking about it. Is this the way you interpret it or not? Thus, he wrote: “...neither the well-versed nor the ignorant should speak about it, for indeed, its sin is greater than its benefit.”