نشریه علوم سیاسی
سال ششم شماره 4 (پیاپی 24، زمستان 1382)

The hegemony of the postmodernisnt, and modernist political sciences teachings of the West is gradually overwhelming not only the dominant political scientific and educational paradigms of Iranian universities but also the seminary schools scientific research and educational centers. The crisis in the new political sciences requires Iranian and Islamic social backgrounds, in addition to, genious, modernism, and self-confidence of the Islamic and Iranian forces and institutions, on the one hand, and the rebirth of the political science, on the other hand. Reforming the political and scientific structure of the country, along with depicting and executing the strategic projects, secures the rebirth and reconstruction of such a moderate and highly efficient political science. The present paper is a general study of this process; the process of moving from a Machiavellian and Hobbsian natural political science to a positivist, ontological, natural political science, and from this science to the postmodernist political science teachings, and from there to the

The writer tries to include in this syllabus the axes considered as indicative of the domain and extension of political Fiqh. The subjects considered worthy of inclusion in the syllabus are as follows: the status of political Fiqh in the category of political sciences, political Fiqh foundations and sources, history of political Fiqh, political Fiqh methodology, challenges of political Fiqh, the present status of political Fiqh, political Fiqh schools, political Fiqh eras, political Fiqh issues, political Fiqh siciology, the barriers and necessities of the extention of political Fiqh, and the research priorities in this field.

The political concepts in contemporary Iran are so confused that they resulted in a kind of conceptual crisis. The crisis originates from the peculiarities of the political sciences discipline, the characteristics of the political concepts in Iran, the confrontation of tradition (and religion) to modernity, and finally the ambiguities of concepts. The article also studies the confusion of the following political concepts in Iran: politics and political sciences, state, the legitimacy of the political system, ideology, the left and the right, party, civil society, and democracy.

The paper studies the crisis of knowledge production in Iran and its theoretical, historical, and political dimentions. The crisis is partly rooted in theory and methodology, but it is mainly rooted in the socio-political structures of the Iranian society which is indiffernt to knowledge and research. The indifference of the political structure to the political sciences discipline is more than other disciplines due to the special subjects dealt with in the discipline. In spite of the essential role of the discipline in solving Iran's socio-political predicaments, internal inefficiency annd low education are the major reasons for the marginalization of the political sciences, leading to a crisis in the discipline.

The results of the paper show that to underestand Imam Khomeini one should understand the personalities in whose behavior and thoughts Imam Khomeini found hid ideals realized. Among the most significant of these persinalities is Ayatollah Modarres whose chracter had many things in common with Imam Khomeinis. With respect to the historical precedence of Modarres, one can find evidence testifying his influence on Imam Khomeini. The achiements of the paper seem to be helpful in underestanding Imam Khomeini's behavior and thoughts.

Providing an answer to the question that why the Qajar dynasty collapsed and was replaced by the first Pahlavi king, the paper is to show the existence of historical regularity in the process of power transfer. To answer the abave-mentioned question, the author examines the following hypotheses: (1) The pressure of a mumber of external and internal factors made the Qajars incapable to maintain power; (2) The simultaneosness of external and internal events were influencial on Rezakhan's power attainment; (3) The English were most influencial in the fall of the Qajars and the rise of the Pahlavis; (4) Razakhan's personal charactristics had a signifcant role in his attaining to power.

Biruni's thoughts are rooted in different approaches to and braches of knowledge. Thus, to understand him, one has to underestand the nature and the foundations of his epistemological, ontological, and humanistic views. Though Biruni focuses on the fate of the natural world and the starting point of his ideas is the description of natural laws and patterns, this end is finally achieved through mental explanation, intuition, and revelation. In other words, his research method is based on a combinational model which starts from sense and induction, continued by reason and deduction, and proved by revelation.

It seems that the political behaviour of the transitory government, formed by the Nationalits (the National Front) and the Religio-Nationalists (the Freedom Movement), was rooted in the intellectual and party backrounds of these groups. To elaborate the issue, the paper comparatively examines the intellectual and ideological features and the political stands of these two parties in the transitory government.

The emergence of postmodernism is the symptom of a crisis, i.e. a crisis of meaning, in modernism. Though, today, to ecounter this crisis modernism has metamorphosed from a truth-based doctrine founded on the sameness of reason and knowledge to an anti-doctrine denying the existence of any truth within the domain of philosophy and knowledge, this metamorphosed modernism, too, cannot have a dialog with Islam. According to the writer, the meaning crisis, still present in modernism, leands man to meaninglessness. Futhermore, any dialog between Islam and postmodernism, too, is contradictory in nature since it would be a dialog between a transcendental truth-based doctrine and an anti-doctrine denying any universal and transcendental truth. Hence, Islamic thought should both cosider the downfall of the Enlightenment reason and propose, without falling into the well of postmodernism, a peaceful view of man to reaffirm its obligation to the moral unity of man.

With respect to the modern developments, studying the intellectual basics of the Islamic revolutionary thought is not as difficult as it was. Some scholars believe that revolutionary thoughts suffer from internal crises one of which is the lassitude in the intellectual basics. The process of the development of the Islamic movement shows that modernization of revolitionary thought is a must. Hassan al-Turabi, Rashed al-Ghannouchi, and Seyyid Muhammad Hossein Fazlolah are among the designers of the idea of the modernization of the Islmic revolutionary thought. Now, more and more the Islamic movement receives changes. And the increasing self-criticism, populism, and the overtness of the Islamic movement are indicative of conceivable positive changes in the course of the Islamic revolutionary thought. Zakki Milad in the third chapter of his book "A Survey of the Contemporary Islamic Thought" studies developments of Islamic revolutionary thought and the most important challenges it faces.

Sayed Jamal was to conciliate between the traditional Islam and the scientific and philosophical challenges of the West, adopting a moderate stand. Believing in the separability of Western new technologies and sciences from Western moralities, he thought that the Islamic world can access the technologies without accepting its theological and philosophical implications. The writer, criticizing the materialists and introducing them as the demolishers of human civilization and society, draws the attention of the Moslem intellectuals to their serious danger. He considers Seyed Jamal's appraoches to religion, philosophy and science as the representative of the nineteenth century Moslem intellectuals who were disstatisfied of the West's power, wealth, and scientific and technological superiority, on the one hand, and the inferiority of the Islamic world under the sway of the West, on the other hand, and invited the Islamic countries to the aquisition of the Western new sciences and technologies.