The previous studies paved a gradual rational course that begins with the knowledge of the Creator, His wisdom, and His grace, then moves to the necessity of the message, revelation, and the infallibility of the conveyor. This course is not completed with the absence of the Prophet (PBUH), because the need that established the necessity of the message does not end merely with its conveyance; it remains standing in its preservation, its clarification, and its safeguarding from deviation.

So if divine grace required the sending of an infallible prophet to guide the human being, then the requirement of this same grace is that the message not be left, after the Prophet, without an infallible source that preserves its meaning and its extension. Thereby the imamate is not a political issue that arose from a historical struggle after the departure of the Messenger (PBUH); it is a rational conclusion at which the previous studies arrive, and which leads us to belief in the divinely-designated imamate as an extension of the divine preservation of the religion.

1. From the Deficiency of the Instrument and the Sterility of Relativism to the Necessity of the Absolute Compass

The rigorous rational approach concludes that the human being is a being composed of matter and spirit. Despite all the material leaps he has achieved, science and technology grant the human being “the instrument, the power, and the abundance of time,” but they are entirely incapable of granting him “the compass, the purpose, and the moral regulator.” For the world of matter and body is covered by empirical science with the instruments of the laboratory and induction, and it is deficient in perceiving the causes of the unseen; while the world of the spirit and legislation is covered by religion and revelation, with fixity in the fundamentals and flexibility in the branches.

Based on this methodical ordering, the claim of the relativity of religion falls; for it is an integrated system that sets out from absolute epistemic truths that reject the relativist sophistical fluidity as it rejects literalist rigidity. And since the Wise Creator, absolute in knowledge, is the source of legislation, the divine message became an absolute existential and epistemic necessity required by the wisdom of the Maker and made obligatory by the need of the creature; for it represents the sole bridge that links the human being to his existential purpose and to the realities of the other world through the unified law of the Quran and the infallible human application.

2. The Dilemma of Historical Deviation and Its Radical Remedy

When we look at the history of the messages, we find that the deviation of the previous religions and the transformation of their contents, becoming something like isolated folklore, was not a defect in their monotheistic origin; it was the product of the struggle between good and evil, the caprices of souls, and the intervention of despotic tyrants, together with the absence of documentation and the safeguarding of the text after the departure of the prophets (peace be upon them).

The final Islamic message averted this deviation radically; so its divine text was preserved from distortion and disappearance. But since death is a certainty for the prophets, the divine wisdom that made obligatory the delivery of this message necessarily requires the continuation of its safeguarding and its protection from distortion and from the chaos of human interpretations after the departure of the greatest Prophet (peace be upon him and his family). For the silent, preserved text always needs a living, infallible interpreter who protects it from the projection of caprices and relative human reasonings.

3. The Demonstrative Foundation of the Necessity of the Imamate and the Divine Testament

Building on this epistemic firmness, reason judges the inevitability of the existence of a continuous succession to the line of prophethood, which is the true succession that is not embodied in a mere political authority managing the affairs of the world, but in the station of the infallible divine “imamate,” which alone is qualified, by the text of appointment, to preserve the secrets of the Sharia and lead humanity toward its desired perfection.

• A divine station, not a human choice: the humans whose deficiency of knowledge and incapacity to formulate an independent spiritual constitution has been established are necessarily more incapable of choosing the one who represents the divine will and bears the burdens of clarifying religion and its infallibility. Therefore, reason and logic conclude that the imamate is a purely divine station, and a succession determined by appointment and fixation from Allah, mighty and exalted, and not by the choice of humans or the consultation of relative caprices.

• A historical norm and an authentic Quranic term: this designated succession is not a novelty of speech or an incidental Islamic invention; it is a steady divine norm that accompanied the march of the prophets (peace be upon them) throughout history. The noble Quran entrenches the “imamate” as a lofty divine covenant that the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) attained after prophethood and intimate friendship (khulla):

“He said: I will make you a leader (imam) for the people.”

And just as divine wisdom arranged for every prophet a “legatee” who guards his Sharia and clarifies its interpretation — such as the Prophet Aaron (peace be upon him), who was the legatee of Moses (peace be upon him) during his life, and Joshua son of Nun (peace be upon him) after him, and the story of the legatee of Allah’s prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) (Asaf ibn Barkhiya) — so the final Sharia, dominant over knowledge and directing its values, is the more deserving of this continuous divine safeguarding.

Conclusion

The premises conclude with a certain result: the imamate is the inevitable existential and functional extension of prophethood. So if “the revelation” (the sending down) requires an infallible messenger appointed from heaven, who is the greatest Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), then “the interpretation and preservation” require an infallible legatee Imam who is likewise designated by a text from heaven; so that the door of guidance may remain open, and the eternal purpose may be realized: conscious wayfaring, voluntary servitude, and continuous elevation toward the Creator, mighty and exalted.