فصلنامه شیعه شناسی
پیاپی 64 (زمستان 1397)

The Saqifa incident after the Prophet’s departure was a starting point in the formation of new arrangements of political power in the traditional context of the religious society in that era. In that political struggle (i.e. Saqifa), Ali bin Abi Talib was ignored and, afterwards, other Imams were not much directly present, if at all, in the political and governmental sphere, except for the presence of Imam Ali and Imam Hassan as caliphs and Imam Reza’s presence as vicegerent or crown prince. The swing of Imams’ entering the sphere of political power and their withdrawal had numerous reasons, among them one can refer to the violent governance and behavior of the ruling power, Imams’ approach to the political power and the government as well as explaining it in its subject matter and its creed. Meanwhile, the sphere of social power was open to them and spread before them. The social power was the best channel through which Imams could rightly explain the religious thought in theory and practice. The present study attempts to answer the question of “how was the Imams’ approach and performance in the two spheres of political and social power?” and investigates it assuming that the power was a subject matter and creed for Imams. In this regard, to explain the study better, we have used the political sociology and political sciences, including Parsons’ theory on political and social power to theoretically explore the issue.

In spite of the fact that the Shiism, due to the different look at the governance of the Islamic society, was always faced with the opposition from the caliphate system, and some of the adherents of that denomination were under persecution, the Shiite thought spread out in numerous parts of the Islamic territory – including Transoxania – during the early Islamic centuries. While exploring the backgrounds and factors, the present article investigates why and how the Shiism infiltrated Transoxania under the Samanids. This article shows that the geographical-cultural situation of Transoxania as well as the religious toleration of Samanids prepared the ground for attraction of Imami Shiites during the 3rd century; and in the early 4th century, Transoxania became one of the most important centers of the Shiite culture. From the mid-4th century, as a result of Al Buya dynasty’s dominance over Baghdad as well as the religious conflicts between Karamya and Maturidis on the one hand and the Shiites on the other hand, that center lost its prosperity and the Shiites migrated to other areas.

The present study attempts, while explaining the way the symbolic messages were transferred in inscriptions and embellishments in Nim-Award and Chahar-Bagh schools in Isfahan, to recognize the most important messages used in a selected number of them to prepare the ground for answering the question of how the symbolic messages would be transferred in inscriptions and embellishments in Nim-Award and Chahar-Bagh schools in Isfahan, and what the most important symbolic messages reflected in the samples under study are. As to the method, the study was a descriptive-analytical one and was conducted with a semiotic approach. Data gathering was done using survey and library sources, and they were analyzed qualitatively. A brief section of the findings show that the symbolic function is one of the most important aspects of the embellishments in those monuments as artistic-historical media. This is in a way that the interaction between Shiism, doctrinal foundations and religious policy is known as the main reference of the artist for transferring the messages in the form of the aforementioned media; and finally, the messages are transferred to the addressees on a regular basis. The most important symbolic messages receivable from those media include stating virtues, succession (caliphate), imamate, and stating the privileges of Imam Ali (AS) for making a role-model out of him as the symbol of the Shiite art. Besides, in the discussion on composition of embellishments, the Shiite numerical symbolism has been used.

There are a lot of hadiths regarding the life and teachings of Jesus in the Shiite hadith collections. A large number of those hadiths deals with a comparison between the life and personality of the Shiite Imams and those of Jesus Christ. This comparison is sometimes a general one, just like a comparison of the Prophet Muhammad’s successors and those of Jesus, and sometimes is a specific one, like comparison between Imam Hussein’s personality and that of Jesus. These hadiths show, on the one hand, the pious look of the Shiite Imams to Jesus and his teachings and, on the other hand, asserts that Jesus believes – from the eternity – in the Welaya (authority) of the Shiite Imams. This similarity is such that the reader feels, on the one hand, that Jesus was just like a Shiite Imam and, on the other hand, that each of the Shiite Imams was an independent Messiah. Investigation of those hadiths assists us in a better understanding of Jesus’ life and personality as well as the Shiite Imams’ life and personality, and prepares the ground for a close relationship between Islam and Christianity. It also recalls the fact that the Prophets and the divine saints were spiritual brothers with no conflict with one another; thus, the believers must interact with them in a brotherly manner.

Using oath words is one of the oldest methods of emphatic speech, with a long precedence in the Arabic culture and language. This kind of emphasis is done because of numerous reasons, among which are the following: weak possibility of realization of the subject, weirdness of the subject, and the addressee’s denial of it. Oath words in Arabic enjoy a unique variety and multiplicity. One of the most prominent examples of multiplicity of the oath style and variety of its use is found in the unparalleled book of Nahj al-Balagha. This study investigates the relationship between the oath words, and what are sworn on in Nahj al-Balagha  to show the difference in usage and the subject of usage in each word to uncover its delicacies and beauties in denotation and connotation. Investigating the significance of various oaths in Nahj al-Balagha shows that all oath words are common in denoting emphasis, but each has a different semantic connotation with a strong relationship to what is sworn on, in a way that substitution of each similar word leads to a reduction of semantic eloquence of the word.

The experience of proselytizing Shiism and the Ahl al-Bayt school in the international space changed radically after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, both qualitatively and quantitatively; and the Shiites – in effect – turned from a dominated and alienated minority into self-aware and self-founded groups in most parts of the world. In this atmosphere, the experience of Nigeria – due to its rapid growth with no previous presence of local Shiism there – is a unique one, not interrupted in spite of continuous attacks against them during the last two decades. Here, questions on the most important factors for success of proselytizing Shiism in Nigeria, understanding the action of Islamic movement and its leader, Sheikh Zakzaki, and the current status of the Shiites based on the political-social structure of Nigeria are most important for showing the strategies of promoting the Shiites’ status in that country. The present article shows that the strategy of social proselytizing is the main factor in success of proselytizing Shiism in Nigeria, which could form the Shiites’ social action, while establishing a relationship between Ahl al-Bayt’s teachings and Nigeria’s social issues, and finally creating the self-aware community of Nigeria.                
The present article studies the tribe as the foundational concept of the social structure of Nigeria, which has led to deep social crises in connection with colonialism and formation of the modern government – crises such as identity crisis, trends of eccentricity and internal wars – to show that the Shiite identity-seeking and self-aware action has been identified as a crisis-making action. Finally, the strategy of reconstructing the image of Shiism from a crisis-making trend to a generative one, and reconstructing the Shiite identity and formation of the Shiite self-founding community in Nigeria have been proposed as a way out of this challenge; and the Shiite community must focus on education, poverty and health problems under the social approach of proselytizing.