The Status of Freedom of Thought in Jurisprudence Principles School of Imam Khomeini (ra) as Foundation of Political Freedom

Human happiness and perfection is indebted to thought and rationality. Intellect and thought also demand freedom and liberty to achieve actual discovery. Freedom of thought means valuing rational explorations and eliminating barriers to this discovery. Intellect has a special status in the Islamic sciences including jurisprudence principles that consider intellect as one of the issues and main sources of inferring rulings. Imam Khomeini (ra) is regarded as one of the salient contemporary jurisprudents and theoreticians and his writings and opinions, as the founder of the Islamic revolution, have always been concerned and investigated by the scholars indoors and outdoors and abundant studies have been conducted on works and ideas of Imam Khomeini (ra), but in this regard, no studies have been made on jurisprudence lessons. This is while intellect is included in the sources of rulings inference and main issues of jurisprudence. Therefore, this paper mainly raises this question that “what status does freedom of thought have in lessons of jurisprudence principles of Imam Khomeini (ra)?” This paper aims to prove that principles of free thinking in theology lessons of Imam Khomeini (ra) at the sublimated level of rationality. To achieve this aim, analytic-descriptive methodology has been applied. Results inferred from jurisprudence lessons of the deceased Imam are as: The deceased Imam not only disagreed on free thinking in the jurisprudence lessons, he has also presented strategies, rules and principles for proper thinking and kept it away from methods that lack rational credibility. Besides, intellect has been given widespread authorities and it is regarded as one of the sources of inference, it is given consideration and attention in inference.