نشریه علوم سیاسی
سال هشتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 32، زمستان 1384)

The paper is a critical study of a theory that tries to justify religious government based on secularism. The expropriatory nature of the theory, replacement of subject of controversy from political philosophy to epistemology, the fallacy of “is” and “should”, presenting an unusual picture of religious government and secularism which neither religious people nor secularists accept, are the problems of the theory dealt with in this paper.

Secularism and secularization are two ambiguous concepts which have specific meaning loads. The use of these two concepts in contemporary Iran has added to their intrinsic ambiguity. To disambiguate and clarify their meanings, first, I will provide a short history of the emergence of the idea of secularization in contemporary Iran and, then, elaborate on the correct equivalent of secularism and secularization in Farsi. Finally, I will make suggestions for further scholarly study of this subject. In addition to discussions over the meanings of secularism, it has also been considered as a political theory in contemporary Iran. There are also references to secularism and secularization as an analytical model for studying the developments in Iran. In an attempt to find the core meanings of secularism and secularization, I will refer to Max Weber’s ideas in this regard. Afterwards, I will consider religion and politics and the relationship between them as an obvious case of subjects discussed under secularism or secularization.

Conventionalization of religion has different meanings in the political Islam and modernity discourses. Modernity is to conventionalize religion to give meanings to its basic concepts out of the domain of religion; but Islamism wants to conventionalize religion so that it can find solutions for problems and needs in the territory of Sharia, within the limits of Ijtihad and on the basis of the developments, changes, and circumstances of time and place. In the contemporary history of Iran, these two discourses were the cause of many socio-political developments for the analysis of which one has two look through the windows of these discourses. To explain the problem of conventionalization in contemporary Iran, I have analyzed the two discourses of modernity and Islamism and the concept of conventionalization on the basis of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. Thus, I have identified the articulations of several important signifiers around the nodal points of modernity and Islamism, explaining these concepts with respect to the meaning systems of modernity and Islamism by means of evidence from contemporary Iran. Finally, I have elaborated several instances of conventionalization in contemporary Iran.

The incompatibility of Islamic government with secular government is explicit with respect to the meanings of these two types of government. And in deciding between the two, reason considers Islamic and religious government inevitable because the existence of God is justifiable according to reason. If there are doubts, again theocracy is preferable over secular government because God’s existence is probable and, as a result, secular government is improbable. One can consider secular government probable only in case it can be proved that people have an intrinsic right to sovereignty against God. However, this is incompatible with God’s absolute ownership and even with the probability of his absolute ownership.

After reviewing the history of the entrance of secularism to the Islamic world and studying a few contemporary Islamic thinkers’ attempt to make secularism compatible with Islam, the present paper explains the formation of the theory of Islamic secularism. The epistemological turn in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutic theory has provided the tenets and means needed by the new epistemological system to go beyond the epistemological foundations of the old Islamic intellectual tradition. Some contemporary Islamic thinkers, on the basis of these tenets, have provided the necessary epistemological foundations. Islamic secularism theory, too, is built on these foundations and, as a result, has specific epistemological implications which are discussed in the paper.

The main concern of this paper is the description and analysis of the relationship between religion and politics in the modern thought. Though many intellectuals of the modernity era have dealt with the relationship between religion and politics, concentration on the three great thinkers of the time, i.e. Hobbs, Locke, and Kant, will help discover some of the present controversies in Iran over the relationship between religion and politics. Among the most important theories, requiring a second thought, are differentiating between the natural religion and the civil religion by Hobbs, differentiating between the state institution and the religion institution and founding secularism by Locke, and finally transforming the revealed religion into the ethical religion by Kant.

Secularism, too, like other human phenomena, is encountering serious and critical challenges. And it is only in the Islamic world where this challenge is visible. The inability of secularism to present a new definition of modern identity for the Muslims, to properly understand the transition of Islamic societies to the modern world, and more importantly the Zionist Judaism’s creating crisis for the West are among the numerous challenges of secularism in the Islamic world. The Western secularism, too, like the Mongol’s attack to the Islamic world, will gradually decline. It should be noted that this critical approach to secularism does not have a postmodern nature. Although postmodern approaches are critical, all critical approaches are not necessarily postmodern.

The present paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the governmental scope of religion is dealt with and a number of religious and non-religious arguments are presented in this regard. The second part includes the views of the critics of this approach and advocates of the limitation of the scope of religion to personal affairs and its withdrawal from government matters. Since the basic goal of this paper is the presentation of the views of the critics, in the first part the religious arguments are given briefly, but they are fully discussed in the second part. This part presents six arguments. The first two arguments, borrowed from Abd-ol-Karim Soroush, separates religion from government with regard to the implications of the type of man’s expectation from religion and the lack of such capability. The next four arguments, proposed by Doctor Haeri and Mahdi Bazargan, lead to the exclusion of religion from government on the basis of the disparity between religion and government in terms of stability and change, of scope and goals, and of method. And the final argument considers the existence of relation between and religion and government to against the practical conducts of the infallible Imams.

Although the idea of secularism is a Western phenomenon and its epistemological origin is in the West, it has spread into other areas too. It is obvious that to enter into the Islamic societies, especially Iran that enjoys Shiism and teachings such as “one who does not have means of livelihood does not have the afterlife” and where the separation of this world and the hereafter is discarded, secularism needed and still needs some carriers to carry the burden of this imported product and disseminate it in the society. Intellectuals dependent on the West are among the carriers that this paper tries to study their activities in Iran.

The purpose of the present paper is to study the secular and religious rationality from the viewpoints of Islamic thinkers. To attain this goal I will first deconstruct the concept of “rationality” and then concentrate on secular and religious rationality. After studying the secular rationality models, I will explain rationality as proposed in the thoughts of Islamic thinkers which can be classified into two models. The first model is philosophical rationality that is related to religious rationality. And the second model is the secular rationality. This type of rationality has emerged in four forms in thoughts of Islamic thinkers which are the adaptive model, the comparative model, the distinctive model, and hermeneutic or critical religious rationality model.

National security is a critical issue for any country. The following questions that are based on the above assumption constitute the major parts of the present paper:1.Does the constitution of Iran have the necessary capacity for guaranteeing national security?2.Why was the National Council of Defense changed to the Supreme Council of National Security during the amendment of the constitution?3.What solutions have been anticipated in the constitution for the probable contradictions in relation to national security? In this paper, in addition to replying to the above questions, I will elaborate on the role of the leader, the three powers, and the Supreme Council of National Security in assuring national security and the way of cooperation among the above components and explain the way of executing security-related decisions.

Mahdi Bazargan (1907-1994) during the latest years of his life tried to propagandize the idea of the separation of religion and state, proposing seven astonishing arguments. The main is question is whether the materials he proposed are argumentation or rejection. The appearance of the material may validate the first hypothesis, but pinpointing his arguments does not support this hypothesis, leaving no alternative except accepting the second hypothesis. As a result, one cannot consider Bazargan as an advocate of secularism. Because of embitterment and in reaction to the existing social conditions, he merely expressed a political rejection and moral advice.