Confrontation of Tradition and Modernity in the Political Thought of Imam Khomeini and National Religious Intellectuals

Ttradition and modernity are among the issues that have created a fundamental challenge in the mental system of thinkers to design a form of government in the contemporary era. Imam Khomeini (r) as the founder of a new system, as well as intellectuals such as Mahdi Bazargan, the engineer, have claimed to analyze and interpret these two concepts. This research tries to answer the question: what kind of connection may be found between tradition and modernity in the thought of Imam Khomeini and national religious intellectuals? The study was performed through a comparative method. Findings indicates that the relationship between tradition and modernity in Imam Khomeini's political thought is the use of two concepts with a critical attitude towards modernity, in contrast to those such as Mahdi Bazargan, who tried to use Islam to prove the nature of modernity, by giving authenticity to the foundations and concepts of modernism.