While the declaration of the qiyāma served to restructure the community around Ḥasan's authority, we can view the Haft-bāb as an exposition of the effects of this apocalyptic event almost forty years after the initial declaration. Like many apocalyptic theologies, the disclosure of a hidden message around which an entire society is reconstructed requires the revision of existing epistemological structures. For example, conceptions of cosmology, cosmogony, spiritual leadership, the understanding of destiny, religious practice and the role of history, must be reshaped in light of this new message. The Haft-bāb does exactly this: it addresses fundamental questions related to the imām; it develops his genealogy, his relationship with the prophets, his identity as the imām who is the master of the resurrection; and it informs us that the full disclosure of his true identity was foreshadowed throughout history. The document also reinforces the Nizaris’ status as an elect community existing exclusively with its Lord.

The Haft-bāb tells us that throughout time, prophets and imāms have attested to the presence of a man who is the locus of divinity on earth; the term for this form among the elect is Mawlānā, ‘our Lord’, which is also the term for the imām. After citing suras 17:71 and 12:36, which illustrate the centrality of the imām to the Quranic text (17:71, for instance, states On the day when We will call all people through their imām), the text then cites prophetic hadith stating that salvation is predicated upon knowing the imām; indeed, knowing the imām is likened to recognising God.

The text then states that during the cycles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad, this Mawlānā figure was the locus of the truth in each cycle of history who often bestowed religious truths upon the prophets themselves, though he was known by different names in each cycle of history. Each prophet and his people also attest to the return of this figure at the end time. For instance, during the cycle of Moses, we learn that the people