An Analysis on Solving the Challenge of the Sovereignty and Rulership Right at the Age of Occultation with an Emphasis on the Imamate Thought

In line with the issue of Imamate is the subject of “Islamic rulership” as one of its philosophies by the Shiites, which has been addressed under the discussion of “legislative authority”. The “legislative authority after the Prophet (pbuh) has been realized in the twelve Imams and it has continued without any problems until the end of life of Imam Hadan Askari (a.s); however, with the beginning of Imamate of Imam of the Time (a.s) and his absence, the rulership of the Islamic society face a challenge. This paper, using a library method in collecting materials and descriptive-analytic method in processing the data, not only proves the possibility of the rulership during the age of Occultation, in contrary to the views of people such as Abdul Karim Soroush, but also explains the howness of its realization, and concluded that during the period of Minor Occultation, there is no such problem in terms of rulership in the sense of being in charge of affairs for the Shia; because during this period, there were few problems that their decree could not be found in the narrations. Moreover, people would dissolve their needs by communicating with special deputies, and although there is no possibility of official communication with Imam during the Major Occultation, the rulership of the ummah continues in the form of the theory of vicegerency of a faqih (Islamic jurisprudent) and this challenge is solved by a fully-qualified faqih.