فصلنامه انتظار موعود
سال دوازدهم شماره 38 (پاییز 1391)

There is a narration from the Prophet in Shia and Sunni sources pertaining to the issue of Imamate. This narration is known as a narration of “the Death of Ignorance” since it initiates with this term. This narration states that the death of one who dies while he does not recognize the Imam of his age and does not believe in his Imamate is like the death of ignorance. It means that his belief and Islam will come of no avail for him in the hereafter. This points to the sublime place of Imamate and to the high status of the Imam. Imam is one who undertakes the guidance of people after the Prophet and it is just through him that Islam will be realized properly. It implies that Imam should be infallible. This trait is exclusive to the household of the Prophet; thosewho are referred to in the verse of purification and in the hadith of “Kasã’”. As a result, just the infallible Imams are intended by the abovementioned narration. They are the twelve Imams of the Shia in which the last one is Hojjah Bin al-Hassan al-‘Askari who is the Imam of our age and everyone who dies without knowing him and without believing in his Imamate will have the death of ignorance.

The name of Imam Mahdi (a) is both effective and instructive. It leads to its high status in the universe and hints to one who is guided and is a guider; one who undertakes the divine leadership of all people of the universe. He is the Imam of all ages and his name has a constructive role for many of the realities.To believe in him is one of the precious capitals for Moslems to successfully create the future. This is a spiritual capital that non-Moslems have no other way but to obtain it through various correct and incorrect ways and to use their imagination to be able to match their exotic beliefs with the reality. However, the Islamic society, including the Shia and the Sunni, enjoy this real spiritual capital; a capital that possesses an extensive capacity to create artistic, literary, productive, and structural works to be used along the path of constructing the reality of the future. This article wants to have a deeper vision on the various scopes and values of this infinite capital source and to offer some guidelines for how to use it more intelligently. These guidelines make the belief in Mahdi to have a sharper effect in constructing the pillars of a future-made society and help people use this divine capital to achieve a future that is more intellectual and more attractive.

The life and marriage of Imam Mahdi (a) is one of the issues that isdiscussed in the field of Mahdism. Some of the raised questions are as follows: Did he ever get married and has progeny? If we assume that he has progeny, another question raises that whether they will have a special role during or after the Imam’s appearance. If so, will they accept to lead people, to rule over people in various places of the world, to undertake people’s affairs after the Imam, and to stand for taking the control of what is needed? Even it would come to mind that whether they take the control of people and rule in some places of the world during the time of occupation. The article is to analyze this issue and to give answer to these inquiries.

In religious sources, it is highly prohibited to estimate the time of the Appearance; whether to determine it exactly, or approximately and imprecisely. Even we are ordained to refute those who proceed to do so. In this research paper, we are going to analyze the issue of “estimating the approximate time of the Appearance”. Those who forbid it refer to the content of some narrations. But those who permit it claim that to guess the approximate time of the Appearance is out of the realm of these narrations. However, those who are against them assert that the meaning of these narrations are general. They refer to the real meaning of “time” in dictionaries and with the help of a sort of principles of jurisprudence and that there is no evidence to say those narrations are limited to just exactly determining the time, claim that based on the “principle of generality”, which is an undisputed intellectual principle, one has to cling to the general meaning of these narrations which state that all sort of setting a time for the Appearance, be it even approximately, is forbidden.Furthermore, to act in accordance to the general meaning of these narrations will gain more meaning if we consider that not only is not there any evidence to make the general meaning of these narration limited, there are some proofs stating that it should not be limited either. Some of those proofs are as follows: 1. Narrations declaring that the time of the Appearance is subject to change2. That the time of the Appearance would arrive abruptly3. That to determine the time accompanies corruptionIn accordance to the narrations, one has to think that the time of the Appearance is not far from him and one has to be prepared for this great event physically and spiritually. Those who want to spread the culture of Madiism and awaiting should focalize their effort on the subject of awaiting, try to enliven the attractive feeling of awaiting, remind people about the traits that one who waits should possess, and avoid discussing about baseless or sometimes aberrant issues.

a reciter, at the last part of ‘ÃlYãsin supplication, as he has learnt from the Imam, presents his beliefs to him and confirms the certainty of his beliefs with adding the word “haqq” at the end of each part. This word denotes the meaning of existence, trueness and not being false.[1] Then, when the reciter has submitted his belief about monotheism, prophethood, and Imamate initiates to present his belief about Raj’ah which is a Shia necessary belief and will took place during the lifetime of the last Imam (A) and at time of his appearance. Afterward, the reciter will testify to the certainty of death and various phases existed after it. Finally, he declares that to be in love with the Ahl al-Baiyt and to follow them is a must. This paper is intended to have a research about the belief in Raj’ah, death, several phases existed after it, the necessity of following the Ahl al-Baiytall based on the verses of the Quran.

During the life of the Imams a variety of factors led to the spread of some diversion flows within the body of Islamic society. In the fourth century, during the Imamate of Imam Riza (a), due to some political, cultural, scientific, social, and economic reasons, the number of these diversion flows reached the highest level. Some of the sects like, Wãqifiyyah, Gholãt, Mofawwezah, Mojabbirah, Mo’tazilah, Zaydiyyah, Motesawwefah, and Khawãrij, are some of the aberrantmovements emerged among Moslems.We, with the aid of the available documents, specially by referring to the science of the narrators and figures, the narrations of Imam Riza (a), and his practical way of life in society, can briefly refer to the following methods applied by the Imam confronted with these misleading movements: To conduct a debate with the heads of these aberrant movements, to train some scientific, cultural, political, and economic elites, to have correlations with important people of the society and to answer their misconceptions, to spread the Shia school of thought, to announce the list of the religious authorities for people to refer, to declare the name of those who invented these devious movements and to express the depth of their deviation through some brief narrations, to fight against promulgating doubts and misconceptions, to say that nothing should be done unless it is proven to be allowed, to spread the correct theological beliefs and to reject the false belief of these devious movements, to interpret the Quran in an accurate way, to promote the culture of Mahdism, and to remind people about principleof HumanDignity.These are some of the methods practiced by Imam Riza (a) in regard with his deal with thediversion movements. In this writing, we intend to explain them in detail with referring to the visual and practical instanced practiced by the Imam in his society.

Endism or to believe in the end and to explain the crisis and failures took place during the modern age are those things that construct the major body parts of cognitive and non-cognitive notions of postmodern era. (Especially in Nietzsche and Lyotard school of thought.) The idea of globalization, emerged during this period of time and showed itself in a way that made the result of these failures to remain concealed within the everyday life of people. Nonetheless, it led to a profound crisis to exist within the realm of thought. This paper, using the postmodern ideas and the beliefs pertaining to endism, attempts to clarify the issue of globalization and to offer a deferent explanation therein to compare it with the Shia belief pertaining to the Apocalypse and to specify the basic contradiction existed between them.Endism and the Shia belief in the Apocalypse is in fact an starting point for having access to the capacities of the universe to lead mankind reach salvation. It just can be gained when there is a corruption on the earth and mankind are confronted with anxiety and tensions. Endism, however, considers the end of the world to be blissful and auspicious. The Shia believes it to be the spring time of the world not the time of decline and fall. Nonetheless, it wont be achieved but through the emergence of one who would implement justice in the world and he is no one but the last Imam. This assay is written with the help of available library tools, is based on a non-experimental and cognitive analysis methodsand has a comparative approach.