Letters of Shiite Imams from the Era of Imam Kazem (as) To the Beginning of the Major Occultation

Shi'ite Imams regarding the context and conditions, in their various ways including sermons, lectures and letters, transmitted Islamic concepts and teachings. Until the age of Imam Kazem (as), there was a direct and immediate link between the Imams and the Shiites to a certain extent. But with the caliphate’s increasing political pressures on Shiites and because of the dispersion of followers of the Imams (as) in different regions, the presence of the Shiites and their oral conversation with Imams were replaced with their correspondence and letter writing. Since the age of Imam Kazem (as), letter writing was one of the main means of transmitting religious concepts and teachings. The main question of the present research is what are the features of content, structure and literature of the letters of Imams (as) addressed to the Shiites from the period of Imam Kazem (as) until the beginning of the Major Occultation? The reflection on these texts, which, on the eve of the time of the Minor Occultation, was the only written means of the Imams to maintain contact with the Shiites, they indicated that Imams were careful about each other not to harm the audience, and therefore the use of arrays such as metaphor and figurative expression was commonplace in such writings. In terms of the content, those letters also contain authentic Islamic teachings, especially those of general and special imamate, occultation, religious sentences, and condemnation of the ghulāt.