The reality of divinity and prophecy as viewed by the Imāmiyyah

1. The reality of divinity and prophecy as viewed by the Imāmiyyah

These two issues occupy a fundamental position in the Shī‘ah doctrine. Anyone referring to the Imāmiyyah books will clearly understand that the Shī‘ahs display great interest in the issue of the Oneness of God and His Lordship and take it as belonging to a guild different from that of worship that creatures must render to God, for Lordship [rubūbiyyah] is specifically Allah’s Divine Essence, and all others are placed on the plane of rendering worship and being creatures.

The extraordinary significance of this issue has set the Imāmiyyah up to taking a harsh stand against the Extremism and its beliefs and write myriads of books in which they have rejected the extremists’ ideas and excommunicated the extremists, because the Ghulāt have not separated the station of Lordship from that of worship, but believe in unification [ittihād] and incarnation [hulūl].

As regards Prophecy, the Imāmiyyah have established their belief upon the Qur’anic texts, maintaining that the Prophet’s (s) mission is the last, and his superiority over all definite. This is something the extremists do not accept. Rather, they consider others superior to the Prophet (s). The Imāmiyyah are of the opinion that no other Prophet (s) has come after Muhammad (s) nor will ever come. Also, anyone who denies that Prophecy ends with Muhammad (s) is a disbeliever. This belief surely stems from the Qur’an.