Meanings and Grounds for Understanding the Constitutional Monarchy and Its Theories

Shia’s jurisprudence, prior to constitutional and Qajar era, payed not much attention to the social and political issues on government. In congruency with the developments in constitutional era, and in the face of traditional and modern argument on the government, Shia’s jurisprudence had to undergo some changes. Two views, one on constitutional Monarch and the other one on the monarchy limited by Sharia were emerged. The view of constitutional monarch was born mainly in the mind of Mohammed Hussein Naeini, while the idea of monarchy limited by Sharia had its source in Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri. It is the aim of this paper to find out how and why these two opposing views on Monarchy unfolded themselves. Analytical tool employed to compare these two views is Skinner’s Hermeneutic who belongs to the school of Cambridge. By using Skinner’s approach, we will try to understand the foundations of principles underlying each of these two views. Hence, the two-fold bases of language, theoretical, operational and ecological factors will be discussed and explained.