The duties of women in paving the way for the Appearance; With an emphasis on the thought of Ayatollah Ṣāfi Golpāyegāni

Fāṭimah-Zahra Sattār1 "The Occultation" is divided into the Minor and Major occultation. At the present time, people are waiting for the appearance of Imam Mahdi. In long-term disappearance, which is known as "the major occultation", there are various topics such as the indicators of the expectant people, the position of the expectant ones, the role of the expectants, the function of the expectants and the duties, which is only discussed at this paper. In terms of gender, the duties of the expectant people are divided into two categories: the duties of the men's society and the duties of the women's society, which is only discussed here. There are three main types of tasks in terms of diversity: tasks for men, tasks for women, and common tasks between expectant men and women. The duties of expectant women are implemented and operationalized with two methods of "self-thinking" and "other-thinking". In the way of self-thinking, first of all, the expectant women undertake self-improvement and personal reforms with the approach of faith, moral, ideological, cultural, etc. In the way of other-thinking and social reforms, with the approach of othering in the form of educating the expectant generation, encouraging men to come to front, and to love Imam Mahdi, and to observe Ḥijāb and chastity, and so on. Undoubtedly, considering that half of the expectant population is made up of women, it is necessary to discuss and analyze the duties of this group during the Major Occultation, with a descriptive and analytic approach. And since the discussion plan must have structural coherence and epistemological order, the format and framework of this discussion is based on the thought of Ayatollah Ṣāfi Golpāyegāni regarding the duties of women in paving the way for the Imam’s appearance.