Political Strategies of Imams (A.S.) to Preserve and Promote the Shia Society Confronting Contemporary Rulers
Subject Areas : Islamic theologyseyed ahmad darestani 1 , mansour dadashnejad 2 , mohmmad javedan 3
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Keywords: Political Strategies, Imams (A. S.), Shia Community, Umayyads, Bani Abbas, Permanent Strategies, Contingent Strategies.,
Abstract :
In the Shiite religious thought, the most important mission of the Infallible Imam (A. S.) is to lead and guide the Islamic Ummah. However, the severe restrictions imposed by the rulers of the time combined with political strangling of Imams (A.S.) prevented them from leading the society freely. This paper deals with the following important question: "how did the Imams practice the mission of guiding people?" The purpose of this study was to determine the political strategies of Imams to preserve and promote the Shiite society. The findings of the research show that the Imams adopted two types of strategies: Permanent strategies such as preserving the Shiite identity, the cohesion of the Shiite community, teaching Shiites' lores, opposition to the usurping government, and tolerance; and contingent strategies such as reservation strategy, cooperation strategy with the oppressive ruler, and advocacy organization strategy. According to the above findings, it has been determined that almost all Imams had the same permanent strategies, yet there were changes in contingency strategies. In this research, SWOT method was used for analysis, while the nature of this research was analytical and descriptive. Keywords: Political Strategies, Imams (A. S.), Shia Community, Umayyads, Bani Abbas, Permanent Strategies, Contingent Strategies.
