نشریه معرفت سیاسی
سال پنجم شماره 2 (پیاپی 10، پاییز و زمستان 1392)

The principle of "Divine unity" is the most important principle in the ideological system of Islam, and "politics" is the basic practical science in the exiological system of Islam. Divine Unity, as an "origin", "direction" and "aim", manifests itself in all political components of Islam to such an extent that the foundations and issues of Islamic politics are considered among the short-term and long-term requirements and functions of Divine unity. Analyzing the requirements of the two dimensions of Divine Unity in essence and in attributes in Islamic politics, the present paper seeks to clarify the aspects of the monotheistic native in the political theory of Islam, which is, in fact, the origin of real difference between the political system of Islam and atheistic political systems. Furthermore, the research findings can contribute to correcting the disorders in domestic and foreign policy the world of Islam, especially for actualizing "monism" (alongside political plurality) in domestic sphere and unity of Islamic nation and human society, as well. A descriptive-analytical method is used in this research in which special emphasis is given to the theological and political views of such eminent scholars like Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi and Ayatollah 'Abdullah Jawadi Amoli.

In response to Imam Khomeini (God’s mercy be upon him) and Ayatollah Khameneii's call for the seminaries to delve into the issues about governmental fiqh, the present paper addresses such issues as dividing public treasury into Muslim public treasury and Imam's public treasury, dividing Muslim public treasury into common and private treasury and the differences between them concerning subject and verdict. It has been confirmed that the owner of Imam's public treasury at the time of the Infallible Imam’s presence is the very Imam and the theocratic guardian jurist of Islamic law is responsible for managing the society during occultation. One of the examples of Imam's public treasury is Khums which should be controlled by no one other than the religious authority as a rightful authority who manages the society, owns Muslim's public treasury and intervene in solving all kinds of Muslim’s problem. It has also been confirmed that the title of Imam as referred to in the Quran and traditions is a general title which includes the infallible Imams and theocratic authority's legal entity. As a result, the full power of the infallible Imams about public treasury applies to theocratic authority, as well.

Political systems can be divided into monist and pluralist systems in terms of their inclination towards monism or pluralism. In the field of politics, monism refers to those thoughts which concentrate on the centralization of authority and considers that only the state has the right and decision to rule. On the contrary, pluralism concentrates on the diversity of power resources and on distributing power among the competing groups. Throughout history, these two ideological-political trends have been supported by political philosophers, and each trend offers certain evidence to support its views. Apparently, there may be very few political philosophers whose thought cannot be discussed within the frame of one of these two trends, in spite of the degree of the attachment of each of these thinkers to these trends. However, these two trends can be equally criticized. In fact, these two approaches have gone to extremes, and so they face challenges in thought and practice. With their sound understanding of these challenges, contemporary Muslim philosophers have taken influential steps to eliminate these challenges, make use of the strengths of these two trends and avoid their weaknesses, and introduce the idea of monism along with political plurality.

The basic assumption of the present paper is centred on the idea of the substantial difference between two epistemic-doctrinal schools, that is, Islam and Liberalism. Islam is a revelatory school and liberalism is a humanistic one. A comparative study of justice is made to underline the essential difference between these two schools. The study shows that individual freedom constitutes a basic and real concept in liberalism. The more liberalism insists on the individual types of freedom, the more justice is marginalized. In Islam, however, justice which comes after Divine Unity is a central principle in Islamic thought. Believers are urged to observe justice. The Islamic government is founded on justice, so that Imam Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, did not accept Madinan's allegiance without insisting on administering justice.

In recent decades, liberalism has faced a barrage of criticism directed to it by socialists in western world and Muslim thinkers in East. The present paper studies and compares the normative state of the aforementioned critics, which is contrary to the moral situation in liberal societies. To this end, Alasdair Macintyre is selected as the representative of socialism and Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi as the representative of Islamic thought. The result of the comparison between the view of each of these two thinkers shows that both of them criticize the liberal extreme individualism and ego-centrism in relation to morality as reflected by the negative aspect of their thoughts. However, the positive aspect of their views or their alternatives for this moral system is different. Macintyre supports socio-centrism in ethics and defines social life as something which has value in itself which gives form to morality, but Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi defines revelation and, in some cases intellect as the source of moral standards and rejects the idea that society possesses value in itself and holds that it is a means for meeting material and spiritual needs. Both thinkers seem to agree that felicity is the final end of morality and support state's participation in preserving morality.

The present paper which is the first of its kind investigtes Oliver Leaman's view of Islamic political philosophy. Leaman's main concern is to criticize the existing interpretations of and approaches to the study of Islamic political philosophy. He believes that Islamic political philosophy is influenced by neo-platonic and neo- Aristotelian school. Accordingly, he accepts the idea of applying the term "Islamic" to this kind of philosophy in the civilizational meaning, not in the content meaning. However, his view of criticism and affirmation is unsound. Regarding criticism, he does not have an accurate perception of the existing interpretations and approaches. With regard to affirmation, he does not have a proper understanding of the relationship between revelation and intellect or religion and philosophy.

The developments which occurred in several Islamic countries in 2011, like a domino effect made analysts and thinkers study and analyze the nature of these developments. A wide range of theories have been proposed about these developments. On one hand, modernity in the form of an Arabic Spring and liberal democracy and at another hand, extremism with a Salafi tendency are proposed. According to, the Supreme Leader of Islamic Republic of Iran, has analyzed these developments represent an "Islamic Awakening" and return to Islamic identity inspired from the Islamic Revolution of Iran. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present paper seeks to evaluate the most known theories about these developments. The scientific findings of this research indicate that only the theory of Islamic awakening is capable of reflecting the reality of the doctrinal, behavioral aspects of these developments and structural and analyzing their real aims.