A New Analysis of Difference between Prophet, Messenger and Imam

There has put forward various views about the difference between prophet (al-nabi), messenger (al-rasul) and Imam that from amongst two views are the more famous than the others: one of the two belongs to the difference between prophet and messenger which doesn’t consider prophet as assigned to preach, but considers messenger as assigned to preach. In the second view which is based on the Zorarah’s narrations, Imam is not able to see angel, but prophet and messenger, of course with some difference, are able to see angel. Many researches regarded the first view as incorrect for some reasons, and, insofar as we searched, all researches interpreted the second view in a way that it leads to theological and meaning contradictions and then they try to remove these contradictions by some justifications. The theological contradiction is in contrast of the station of Imamah with not-seeing the angel and the meaning contradiction is that it is against the narrations that explicitly state that angel is seen by Imam. After examining all views, this article defends the first view and, by a new explanation of the narrations of Zorarah, removes the theological and meaning contradictions arose in the second view.