God created human to raise them in a divine civilization to the position of Allah’s deputy on earth. He knew well that it would be impossible for humans to go through this challenging and dangerous path alone. This was not something trivial; because humans’ happiness in this world and the eternal hereafter depended on the flourishing of their human talents. The responsibility of the chain of prophets was over and the last prophet had passed away. But it would not have been possible for man to continue the path without the individual, expert and innocent guidance. But keeping on the path was not possible without the guidance of a skilled, expert and infallible individual. At this turning point in history, the need was felt to form the nation of the representatives of the Prophet. Although the formation of the nation of the representatives of the Prophet appears to have occurred in this period, the roots of this great event go back to before the creation of humans. God created fourteen infallible experts to guide humans and then created humans from their light.
It was in the last years of the Prophet’s (PBUH) life that God issued the command of the event of Ghadir and declared Imam Ali (PBUH) as the head of the representatives’ (Imams’) and successors. But humanity interfered in the path of the formation of the nation of the Imams with the betrayal of the Saqifah Banu Sa’ida and the training of humans deviated from its natural divine journey. Betraying and ignoring the infallible expert Imam became a habit of humans. In accordance with the conditions of their time, the Ahl al-Bayt (PBUT) were forced to resort to private training and secret guidance. This was because the path of their preparation for the formation of the new global civilization should not be harmed.
The Ahl al-Bayt (PBUT) were like a single human; and the life of the imamate of this single human lasted for 250 years. They were maintaining and preparing the human infrastructure for the promised divine civilization throughout this time. In the meantime, the last Imams were engaged in organizational activities for the preparation of the new civilization in a clearer and more serious way.
In this section, we discuss the formation of the nation of the representatives of the Prophet and the educational methods of the infallible experts to prepare the ground for the formation of a new civilization.