The Intervention of Seyyed Mohammad BagherShafti in Government, Based on Theory of Jurists’ Vicegerency of Imam Zaman (AS)

Seyyed Mohammad BagherShafti was one of clergymen of the thirteenth century, contemporary with FathAli Shah and Mohammad Shah Qajar. He succeeded in establishing an illegitimate religious government in Isfahan for a short period of time. He had comeinto possession of a vast fortune through his seizure of religious revenues; which made the central government concerned. The pretext he resorted to for this political action—following the path of his tutor,VahidBehbahani—was his belief in theory of jurists’ public vicegerency of Imam Zaman (AS) during the occult period. Based on this theory, during the occult period, the jurists are vicegerents of Imam Zaman, and are entitled to enforce certain jurisdictional laws. The theory of public vicegerency of Imam Zaman (AS) has gone through changes since the fifth century and evolved in the Qajar era.  The present study, through adopting descriptive-analytic method, reveals how the intervention of Shafti in governmental affairs was based on the theory of public vicegerency of Imam Zaman (AS). However, he differed from other jurists, trained by VahidBehbahani, in his perception of legitimacy of the regime. In fact, other Shia jurists of that time did not attempt for establishing government and considered the Qajar government as legitimate.