فصلنامه شیعه شناسی
پیاپی 33 (بهار 1390)

The notion behind awaiting the promised savior, besides its spiritual aspects and inviting the people to perform descent acts is an attempt to set up a social structure based on justice and equality. Throughout the history, the anticipators – religions and dogmas– have looked forward to the appearance of a social savior and reformer. The instructions of the Holy Quran give the tidings of a society whose inheritors are righteous people. The traditions and narrations emphasize that the promised savior will be from the household of the prophet of Islam and is called "Mahdi".The present article deals with the uprises having taken place in the name of Mahdi (may God hasten his appearance) in the first two centuries after Hijra, which were based on the belief in awaiting the savior and were effective in the political and social changes in Iran. These rises are classified in three groups: the uprises having appealed to the idea of belief in the Shiite promised savior called Mahdi; the uprises by Moslems against the caliphates of the Omavites and Abbasides, under the title of al-Reza from Mohammad's Household; the uprises by the Iranians based on a mixture of the Islamic and pre-Islamic beliefs. These uprises eventually ended in the acquaintance of the people in Iran with their rights as human beings and Moslems.

Although the issue of open-mindedness has been recommended and attended to by the religious instructions, it has always encountered challenges. This article deals with the way through which such an issue got formed in the context of the Shiite clerical community and seminary schools and it also examines the reasons behind the challenges faced by a lot of open-minded scholars. The author claims that open-mindedness in the Shiite clerical organization has constantly been a personal concern and it has never elevated to a level as an institutional concern; therefore, open-mindedness has been taken into account just by a limited number of scholars. In this case, the Shiite clerical organization should set out to diagnose the problems in this regard and pave the ground for the expansion and improvement of Islamic sciences through an official and institutional support of open-mindedness. The issue of open-mindedness should get institutionalized in the clerical organization and it should be promoted from its personal status quo to an institutional and organizational stage.

The present article is an attempt to launch a study on the Cathedral House of Mourning for Hussein in Zanjan and the ceremony held in it –which has been registered as the 10th site of the spiritual inheritance of the country. In order to examine the role and importance of this ceremony from different aspects and reveal its ideological and religious position, its unique characteristics and its role in propagation of religiosity and promotion of the religious culture through the city, the article follows a case-study model and applies sociological and anthropological means of analysis and adopts a viewpoint of the functionalist theory.

Sheykh Ibrahim Kafami, the outstanding Shiite narrator in the ninth and tenth century (after Hijra), has a less known work titled as "Safwat ol-Sefat fi Sharh-i Doa al-Samat". This is the oldest interpretation on Samat Supplication. The book, in spite of its status, has not yet been printed and remains as a manuscript. This article, first, introduces Kafami and his works; then, it deals with the mentioned important interpretation in terms of its methodology and bibliography employed by Kafami. The article also deals with other important issues provided in this book including literary sciences and information about the prophet, culture, location and nature.

Nowadays, the voter's consensus and following it are new and central issues in democratic systems. Mostly, the political and humanistic systems, based on their approved intellectual principles, try to grant an increasing credit to the voter's consensus and in this way they intend to prove that they are democratic. However, in a religious democratic system which has a different basis and considers the Most High God to be in the center of the affairs, the issue should be studied from the viewpoint of the jurisprudence of Quran and traditions. This article provides an account on this subject from the viewpoint of the Quranic jurisprudence and with an emphasis on the ideas of the Shiite interpreters. The major idea in this regard is that the voter's consensus has a declarative creditability and the final decision, except in especial cases, is to be made by the Islamic ruler appointed on behalf of God.

The new Shiite political/social movement in Iraq got formed in the discoursal community prevalent in Iraq since 1940s onward and it is closely related to the social and historical ground in Iraq in intellectual and political terms. Such events as the expansion of communist and nationalist thoughts and later the dominance of the Bath Party in 1968 and its organized aggression and evident injustice against the Shiites forced the Iraqi Shiite discourse and the seminary schools to produce innovative political thoughts and ideas, which embodied in martyr Sadr's ideas, the organizations of the Islamic Dawa Party and its more-than four decades of contests as a resisting discourse against the discourses of power. This article deals with the Islamic Shiite movement discourse of Iraq and the social and political movement resulted from it during three major discoursal periods: first, the idea of universality and fighting against the Marxist and nationalist discourse; second, the idea of localism; and third, the idea of radicalization.

Fazl Ibn-e Shazan Neyshaburi is a Shiite theologian and Fazl Ibn-e Shazan Razi is a Sunnite scholar. Their similar names, living in the same period and the sameness of the titles of some of their works resulted in an interchange since the period of Ibn-e Nadim Baghdadi (380 after Hijra) and often one of them was mistaken for the other. In this article, a brief account has been provided on the successive mistakes and their instances. The strategies applied for distinguishing the two figures from each other include reintroduction of their patronymic, ancestors, teachers, students, expertise and works. The major expertise of "Abol-Qasim Fazl Ibn-e Shazan Ibn-e Isa Razi" (birthdate: 290 after Hijra), is in the Quranic sciences and interpretation; he was specially acquainted with the science of reciting the Holy Quran and he was also familiar with the religious jurisprudence. All his sheikhs and students were Sunnites. However, Abu Mohammad Fazl Ibn-e Shazan Ibn-e Khalil Neyshaburi (birthdate: 260 after Hijra) was well-known in the sciences of tradition, jurisprudence and Shiite theology. He is a prominent theorist in theology and he wrote tens of critiques on the theological tendencies in his period.