Ummah and Imamate is one of the most controversial fundamental doctrinal issues in Shi‘i Islam. The present study aims to uncover the binary oppositions and semantic hierarchies governing Ali Shariati’s Ummah and Imamate in order to reveal marginalized narratives and suppressed or attenuated voices and, ultimately, to reorganize the text in ways that enable the production of new meanings. Accordingly, the research is fundamental in nature, adopts interpretation as its objective, addresses a “what” question, and employs an interrogative research strategy. Rather than relying on a conventional theoretical framework associated with deductive strategies, the study draws on Jacques Derrida’s strategy of deconstruction to critically read Ummah and Imamate. The data are analyzed through David Boje’s eight-stage deconstruction method. The findings, based on the identification of ten binary oppositions, demonstrate that the dominance of central concepts in the text including the deprived Ummah, Imamate, the revolutionary subject, leadership, despotism, and ideology is by no means absolute. Instead, marginalized and excluded concepts and groups, particularly the “independent and self-conscious individual,” together with social, political, and cultural pluralism, play a significant role in producing and sustaining the meaning of the central concepts. The deconstruction of Shariati’s conception of the ideal society therefore reveals that his emancipatory project, despite its explicit critique of domination, contains an internal tension concerning the nature of power, the possibility of reproducing domination, and the relationship between leader and follower. This tension becomes particularly evident in the unresolved relationship between unity and plurality. Accordingly, deconstruction makes visible meanings and voices that remain subordinated within the dominant narrative and opens the text to alternative interpretations.