The Politics of Meaning in Shiite Discourse

Along with the struggle and uprising, "production of meaning" in areas where the ruling power has not been able to gain access has been part of the tradition of the Imams to preserve and develop the Shiite discourse. The research question follows as: how the Shiites were able to maintain and disseminate their political discourse, despite their critical stance on official politics in some historical periods? The findings of the research show that the Imams (as) have used effective strategies in order to maintain and expand the Shiite discourse in the face of various political conditions, and "politics of meaning" has been one of these strategies. The politics of meaning is composed of a chain of signs, each of which is the heritage of one of the Imams and may be repeated in the life of one or more Imams. The semantic implication of the system of signs of the politics of meaning in the life of the Imams (as) has been the crossing of the borders of official power and the guarantee of the Shiite life in the areas of resistance. The method of this paper is to analyze the semantic sign of discourse.