Salman the Persian
Among the Alawites, whose cosmology also has Gnostic roots, the is the junior divine emanation in a triad, which is further comprised the Godhead itself, or "the Essence" (), and "the Name" () or "the Veil" (). According to Alawite doctrine, this triad is incarnated in each successive historical cycle; the role of the , along with the , is to "veil" the true character of the : the is the "silent" Imam, the is the public, "speaking" Imam, and the the gateway to the Imam. Thus in the present, Islamic cycle, Ali is the real Godhead, veiled by Muhammad as his , with Salman the Persian as his . Each of the eleven Imams then had his own , who acts as the intermediary between Imam and the faithful. The founder of the Alawite sect, Ibn Nusayr, is held to have been as the to the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari.