Islam in the Constitutions of Three Islamic Republics: Iran, Afghanistan and Mauritania

Among states who have accepted the Islamic Republic as their governmental framework, we seek to do a comparative study of Mauritania, as the innovator of such a system, Iran and Afghanistan, regarding their approach towards Islam and its influence on the legal system. Pakistan and Comoro have the same Islamic governmental system but are not considered in this study since it is very difficult to compare five countries in an article. Iran, Afghanistan and Mauritania have considerable distinctions despite their common points including the official religion, necessity to adjust laws with Islamic principles and the condition of being Muslim to become president; an issue arisen from two different perspectives while having common belief in Islamic values: a perspective interpreted in Iran as “the maximum presence of religion in the society” and therefore the legal system; and in Mauritania and Afghanistan as “the balance among Islamic teachings, democracy and human rights”. Our main argument in this article is that the governmental/state framework of the Islamic republic is capable of maximum compatibility with democratic musts and international human rights requirements and it may be called the integration of religion and democracy.