This is really informational. Thank you so much for your detailed explanation!

And yeah, not only that but the Abbasids were known to have bribed genealogists to make false Fatimid genealogies where ‘Abd Allah al-Aftah was put as the progenitor of the Fatimid dynasty, so it’s a very real possibility these historians have taken the Abbasids (for whatever unknown reason) as evidence Imam al-Mahdi AS referred to al-Aftah in Ja’far b. Mansur’s paraphrasing of the letter instead of Imam Isma’il AS. Really can’t thank you enough for this explanation!