An Investigation into the Views about the Identity of God's Viceroy and the Succeeded One in the Phrase I am about to place a viceroy in the Earth

The phrase "I am about to place a viceroy in the earth" as a part of the verse 30 in Surah Baqarah (The Cow) is regarded one of the most used and challenging phrases in the history of Islamic sciences. Commentators, theologians, mystics and philosophers have expressed different views about the identity of viceroy and the succeeded one. The present paper seeks to review and analyze these views in order to identify the correct ones. To this end, it provides a general review on the identity of viceroy and the succeeded one, enumerates and describes different proposed views comprehensively, and judges them based on the analysis of the context of relevant verse and hadiths. It first reviews the concept of the succeeded one and concludes from the analysis of the relevant verse and hadiths that the succeeded one mentioned in the verse is the Most High God. Then it examines possible probabilities and proves that the only accepted probability is that God's viceroy should have special referents and appointed by God.