This book offers an intellectual history of one of the leading Shi¿i thinkers and religious leaders of the 20th-century in Lebanon, Shaykh Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din. The author examines his role as the foremost figure of Shi¿i intellectual life, a key associate of Musa al-Sadr, and president of the Islamic Shi¿i Supreme Council of Lebanon, having maintained the independence of this institution until his death from the domination of Shi¿i political parties. The core of the book consists of three interrelated main themes that constitute the major threads of Shams al-Din¿s intellectual legacy: a discussion of Islamic government involving a critique of Khomeini¿s theory of wil¿yat