فصلنامه انتظار موعود
سال هجدهم شماره 62 (پاییز 1397)

“Futures Studies” is the science of studying future to recognize “possible”, “probable”, and “preferable” futures of the society. “Prospection” can also be seen as the art of shaping the future; a processing of the image which drives the future towards the desired state, based on the tribulations of the promised utopia which has found its identity among the Ummah with illustrating the ideals of the past, present and the future. This debate has a special place in Islam. Based on the Shia beliefs, future building at the appearance of the waiting Imam is a clear and comprehensive answer to the innate and fundamental questions of humanity about the desired and ideal life of future. In this regard, we can see the prospection as the creative attempt to the purposeful visualization and construction with reliance on the external realities and available values in the civilization of the society which its main goal is to build a preferable situation in order to create national determination and hope for moving towards the city of “Mahdavi justice” in the light of the tradition of Muhammadi justice and the Alawi justice government. The present research examines the verses and traditions in the form of prospective steps using the theory of “critical realism” and then engages in designing a future image of coordinates of Mahdavi’s justice government in three areas of administration-management, politics-economy, and culture-society.

The field of “Mahdism Studies” as a field of study requires the organization of the subject and subject recognition, final goal and final goal recognition, issues and issue recognition, method and methodology in order to standardize the epistemic and structural knowledge. Thus, the mentioned field requires a method and methodology. Since the issues of Mahdism studies have variations and specific diversity in terms of their ontological and genealogical nature, in order to justify them, different methods such as the narrative method, rational method, empirical method and intuitive method are needed. The present paper only deals with the rational methodology in Mahdism studies based on its defined mission. This paper, at first, analyzes the essence of rational method and its variations and then explains the three categories of methods such as the material method, face method and the seeker’s method and in continuation, discusses the rational methodology of Mahdism studies and its variations such as pure rational method (rational independencies), the rational-combinative method (non-rational independencies) such as rational-narrative method, rational-historical method, and rational-intuitive method, analyzes the instances and discusses the howness of their application in the field of Mahdism studies.

The issue of the present research is about the Qur’anic reasons of the theory of submission, that is the sheer obedience of those waiting at the general presence of Imams and specially the Imam of the Time (A.S) with the focus on the issue of infallibility of the Imams which is in line with the submission of human in front of God and His Prophet (P.B.U.H) and is considered to be the highest level of religious requirements (the level of faith and perfect certitude). The secret to the submission in front of the Imams like obedience in front of the Qur’an is the infallibility of Imams. However, for most Sunnis, unlike the Shiite, the restriction of infallibility to the prophets, only at the time of prophecy has led them to adopt a different approach toward the obedience and consequently to disobey the Imams both in their speech and behaviors in front of Imams; while this issue explicitly contradicts the verses of the Qur’an. This research, carried out with the descriptive approach and the qualitative analysis of the content, while it explains the nature of submission and the levels of religious requirements and Qur’anic reasons of obedience in front of the Imam and their infallibility, concluded that the sheer submission and obedience at the presence of the infallible Imam at any period is a religious and rational necessity in terms of “all of them are of the same light” and without believing this, the true faith would not be realized.

In the contemporary world, religions face relatively similar challenges that need to be addressed in order to overcome them. Convergence of religions, in spite of all intellectual and practical differences, can pave the way for passing these challenges. Therefore, research and investigation of the factors and ways of achieving this convergence in this regard is inevitable. In this paper, the content analysis method is used. In this method, by referring to the sacred texts of Abrahamic religions and describing and analyzing the doctrine of believing in a Messiah as well as discovering the commonalities, they have been used as a tool for convergence. In this paper, a model for the convergence of Abrahamic religions based on the belief in the Promised person is presented, according to this model, the doctrine of Messianism in the Abrahamic religions shows two similar components of a desirable future and a state of existent disarray. These constituents exclude the Messianism in Abrahamic religions from merely being “an idea” and transform it from a mere belief into “discourse” and an infrastructure for the social activities of the followers of these religions. In this discourse, the Messianism leads to the discovery of similar insights, tendencies and acts among the followers of these religions, the result of this similarity will be convergence.

Strengthening the two fields of “defense” and “security” are considered as the important elements for the empowerment of countries. Various factors contribute to the continuity and sustainability of security and the strengthening of defensive spirit in the people. Consolidating the beliefs and teachings of the religion as an important element in strengthening the defensive spirit of the people consequently play an important role in stabilizing the security. In this regard, the “Mahdism thought” as one of the basic teachings of the religion of Islam has a function in enhancing the security and defending the Islamic system. The social function of belief in Mahdism in the fields of defense and security can be recognized and analyzed in the areas such as social order, social unity and solidarity, the firmness of social relations, the strengthening of social power. For this reason, one of the most important findings of this research is to demonstrate the capacity of Mahdism idea in the field of defense and security by “explaining its social function” in the realm of order, unity and firmness of relations and social power. The most prominent solutions of this thought in these fields are: the firmness of religious beliefs, specially the doctrine of Imamate, generating and re-reading the common moral values, establishing emotional relations and bonds in people, building unified union and identity between ethnic groups and sub-cultures, and building public trust which results from strengthening of values and adhering to ethical rules.

“Policies” are actually the illustrator of the faces of the governments and are greatly influenced by the form and nature of governments. The main issue of this research is the “presence of the distinction between the current policies in the Islamic countries and their Islamic ideal model”. The methodological approach of this research is “mixed”. To collect data in the first phase (qualitative), after studying the narrative and religious literature, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the participation of eighteen policy-makers and experts in the field of Mahdism and the paradigm model of this research has been extracted using the data-base theory technique. The central subject of the paradigm model is the Mahdavi policy making. The results show that monotheistic, rationalistic, perfectionist, and justice-based policies are the central issues and the outcomes such as the satisfaction of God and the people (Ummah), welfare, security and the golden epoch of life are the results of this model. Moreover, the unified world-wide government, nations’ unity, divine legitimacy, popular acceptability and the mature nation are the influential factors in the strategies. Additionally, the results show the confirmation and conformity of the presented model. Addressing the issue of policy making, with respect to the demands of the Appearance era is among the knowledge increasing aspect of this research