Shiite Discourse in Allama Majlesi’s Views; The Structures of Political Opportunity and Situation-Subjectness

Allama Majlesi (1037-1110 AH) was one of the prominent Shiite scholars in whose views a certain semantic system has been formulated for organizing the Shiites’ daily life in the Occultation Period. In his thought, formulation of a political-social theory for formation and organizing the Shiite community are of basic importance. The question is how Allama Majlesi delineated that formulation for the Shiites in Occultation Period. The present article uses the theory of the “structure of political opportunity” and “discourse analysis” to test the hypothesis that Allama made use of the opportunities of political structure under the last two Safawid kings, King Salman and King Hussein, to formulate and fixate the Shiite discourse system. The discourse has three layers: in the first layer, he distinguishes and represents the Shiite discourse others. In the second layer, he puts forward the individual jurisprudence and the religious precepts pertaining to the spheres of private and public life; and in the third layer, he theorizes the political jurisprudence and the pattern of political action for the Occultation Period.