The Four Deputies


The Four Deputies, the Sufara or the Wukala, were the four individuals in Twelver Shia Islam who served as messengers between the community and the Hujjat-Allah al-Mahdi, the twelfth and final Imam, upon his going into the Minor Occultation.

Historical view

some vague points to the letters of the al-Mahdi that received to the Shia.
Abu Sahl Ismail al-Nawbakhti wrote in his book al-Tanbih that most of the close friends of al-Askari died 20 years after his death. They were in communication with al-Mahdi.
The deputies' names originally appeared in al-Numani book al-Ghaybah al-Nimani, then Ibn Babawayh recorded the names of four deputies in Kamal al-Din. Most reports about activities of deputies are in Tusi's book al-Ghaybah al-Tusi.
According to Abdulaziz Sachedina, it publicly has been pointed to deputies in primary sources such as al-Kulayni and Ibn Babawayh al-Saduq, who has mentioned several people that they had connected with al-Mahdi. Sachedina concludes by reviewing hadiths of Ibn Babawayh that the term "Special Deputies" has been created in explaining the Minor Occultation for the later periods.
Sachedina also concludes that no early Twelver sources concerning the occultation, including by authors al-Kulayni, Ibn Babawayh and Shaykh Tusi, confined the names and number of deputies purely to the four that would later be exclusively legitimised; rather, this was later accepted for expediency's sake. There were also deputy claimants who were officially rejected by the Imami community, such as Ibn Nusayr.

Deputies

Twelver tradition holds that four deputies acted in succession to one another from 873–941 CE:
1) Abu Muhammad Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Asadi Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Asadi
3) Abu al-Qasim al-Husayn ibn Ruh al-Nawbakhti
4) Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Samarri
The Major Occultation began following the death of the last deputy and, according to the Shia doctrine, will continue until the return of the Mahdi.

Duties

At first, deputies were responsible to maintain the relation between Imams and Shia and collected religious taxes, such as the Khums and Zakat. As well as they were responsible to guide Shia and delivered letters containing religious questions. In addition to, they were responsible for the introduction of the next Imam after the death of the previous Imam. According to Abdulaziz Sachedina the network of agents were responsible to collect religious taxes in the era of the Imams and Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Asadi was one of the al-Askari's deputies. In the situation which the last Imams were confined and surveilled by the Abbasids, deputies were responsible for managing the society and they took virtual leadership to care of Shia. Deputies were responsible to guide the Shia in the religious thought of sociality.