The Imam's Ultimate Role in the System of Creation

The Imam, is a Perfect Human Being, that God’s Attributes Perfection, at the highest possible stage, have been manifested in him. He is God’s Vicegerent and Proof on the Earth and among all human beings. The Ultimate – in voluntary actions – is a stage of ontological status of perfection that the action due to its motive is issued and it is also called the ‘Purpose’ and ‘Aim’. From the standpoint of the intellect, the Ultimate and Aim of the universe that is the Act of the Wise, finally ends up in God; but at a stage after it, there is a being that in comparison with the other beings, enjoys a higher stage of the anthological status of perfection. This being is the ‘Perfect Human Being’ that in the ‘arc of ascent’, even goes beyond the ‘non-material intellects’. It can be concluded from the Holy Qur’an that the goal of creating the universe, has been the perfect human being. The Perfect Human Being, is the Imam and leader of humanity in the movement toward the ‘Ultimate Perfection’. The Ultimate purpose for the creation of the universe, is a human being who enjoys the highest spiritual and possible ontological status of perfection but God in every time. Such a human being is God’s Vicegerent on the Earth. In the Islamic traditions also is emphasized on the subject that the Imam is the God’s Proof on the Earth and if he is not in existence on the Earth even for a moment, the Earth will swallow its inhabitants. This means that, the very existence of the Imam who is the Great Example of Perfect Human Being, is the philosophy and ultimate of the creation of the Earth; and the existence of ‘Caused’ is impossible without the ‘Ultimate Cause’.