نشریه علوم سیاسی
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 37، بهار 1386)

This paper evaluates the relationship between contemporary religious intellectual trends and the conventionalization of religion. The question is whether the contemporary religious intellectual trend had any role in the conventionalization of religion or not. The answer is positive. To prove the relationship between religious intellectualism and the conventionalization of religion, the paper first concentrates on the concept of conventionalization and topics which help understanding the relationship. The topics are the meaning of religious intellectual, the historical factors and grounds of the formation of religious intellectualism, its characteristics and instructions, religious intellectuals’ reading of religion, and the mechanisms of conventionalization.

Intellectual trends in Iran can be categorized in different historical periods on the basis of their attitude towards the West or religious and native culture and with respect to socio-political changes in various forms with Western, nationalistic, Leftist, or religious trends. A quick glance at these trends can prepare the grounds for social and intellectual researchers because identifying socially active trends or understanding the grounds of future activities is highly dependent on intellectual trends that appeared in the recent century in Iran. This paper tries to have a quick glance at intellectual trends in contemporary Iran.

The widespread scientific, political and social developments that started in various societies especially in the Western societies a few centuries ago and are still continuing have confronted intellectuals with different questions in different fields. In such circumstances, Fazl-al-Rahman, a Muslim intellectual, tried to answer, on the basis of the holy Qur’an and the traditions, these questions the most important of which may be how beliefs, values, and religious precepts can cope with the changes. Thus, discussions over the reconstruction of religious thought and how religion can be made effective in situations different from the past are very axial and have had an influential role in forming trends known as “religious revivalism”. This paper evaluates the principles of his theory about the reconstruction of Ijtihad [jurisprudence] in religion.

Understanding modern political thought requires some prerequisites. The conceptual history of politics dates back to about 3000 years ago, i.e. to Greece where political thought was born. Gradually during historical periods, political thought transformed as a result of various developments. In the modern age, it was deeply influenced by new scientific methods. Understanding the relationship between cognition and politics and the logic of the traditions of political thought is possible by means of two principles: distinguishing the original from politics and considering the relationship between the old and the new.

This paper concerns with the way the concept of nabowwat [prophethood] develops in Avicenna’s political thought with regard to his ideas about ontology, celestial system, anthropology, and innovative theses such as Feyz [benignity] and Enayat [favor]. Undoubtedly, in the history of the development of Islamic philosophy which starts with the accompaniment of Farabi’s Hikmat [wisdom] and Shariat and proceeds towards the priority of Shariat, Avicenna is considered as a great philosopher after Farabi. The priority of Shariat emerges with expressing the priority of revelational knowledge over rational knowledge hidden in the concept of prophet. Avicenna’s political philosophy is not to prove the concept of nabowwat because it is considered as a priori and essential matter after which human society will appear. In this intellectual system all Islamic and Avicennian philosophical theories are in the service of nabowwat and try to find a non-traditionist rational position for explaining the political position of nabowwat in the time of the crisis of Islamic caliphate.