A Critique and Analysis of Reasons for Illegitimacy of the Religious Government during the Occultation Era

Subject Areas : Iranian Political Research

Mohammad Mahdi Baba‐Pur Golafshani ¹ , Ali  Jafar‐Zade ²

1 - Assistant professor of Shahid Beheshti University,Tehran
2 - Faculty members, Qom Branch, Islamic Azad University

Received: 2018-06-26 Accepted : 2018-06-26 Published : 2014-12-22

Keywords: Legitimacy, &nbsp, religious&nbsp, government, &nbsp, Occultation&nbsp, Era&nbsp, &nbsp, ,

Abstract :

Some believe that a religious government during the Occultation Era does not have the necessary legitimacy. The proponents of the idea have presented reasons most of which refer to the absence of the twelfth  Imam  per  se  and  the  existence  of  narrations  that  have pictured  any  uprisings  or  restorative  movements  as  useless, inefficient  and  even  illegitimate.  The  present  study  is  aimed  at indicating that the absence of the twelfth Imam per se may not be a reason for the illegitimacy of the religious government but a religious government can set the stage for the messianic culture. It will also show  that  despite  the  existence  of  narrations  that  reject  the legitimacy  of  an  uprising  during  the  Occultation  Era,  there  are genuine narrations in the narrative reference books that refer to the legitimacy of the movement. By drawing a comparison between the two categories of narrations, it may be concluded that some of those uprisings, including Imam Khomeini’s uprising that led to an Islamic government, were legitimate in case of having the conditions of an uprising.