Historical Investigation of Ideological Grounds of the Advent of Vaqefieh

Cessation on some one from the household of prophet as the last Imam and expected Mahdi has not been a new and unprecedented issue. A group of Shiites who knew Imam Kazem (PBUH) as Mahdi and Qa’em have been identified as Vaqefieh or Vaqefeh. This group who had devoted a great deal of power and time of Imam Reza (PBUH) to themselves had been considered a serious threat to the decent Shiite thought in many aspects. In this regard, the identity and characters of the stated trend has been investigated by the researches and the analysts of Islamic studies in diverse aspects. To these researchers, the personal motivations and beliefs of the initiators of Vaqefieh are considered as the main elements towards the advent of this trend. The present writing is to investigate the religious beliefs and ideological instructions of Shiite community of that time through the exploration of documents and to verify this claim that Vaqefieh ideology contemporary to the time of Imam Reza (PBUH) would be the continuation and the evolutionary script from the early deviation having been developed on the basis of the two principles of ‘Imamate’ and ‘Mahdaviat’ and it has been of a requiring manifestation in the different span of time.