The Conceptual Analysis of "Sunnah" (tradition) in Imam Khomeini's Thought

Imam Khomeini was the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979. In the discoursive context of the historical encounter of the modernists and the religious with Sunnah (Tradition), Imam Khomeini established and invigorated the orientation of "Sunnah Revival" going beyond the orientations of "Refusal of Sunnah" and "Return to Sunnah" on the one hand, and "Repetition of Sunnah" on the other hand. Also, he went beyond the developmental dualism of "Tradition-Modernity" and with "Positive ignorance" of the West, pursued the logic of internal criticism of sunnah. Imam Khomeini as a religious man (either in the leadership position of a great political-social revolution or in the position of an ordinary person in daily life) acted in the multiplexed context of Sunnah. This context comprises "religious tradition" and "life tradition". The former is dividable into "Divine-genetic tradition (SUNNAT-ALLAH)" and "Juridical-legislative tradition (FIQH)" and the latter is dividable into "the Muslim life tradition" (with subdivisions of "historical tradition of the beginning of Islamic era" and "the Muslim social tradition") and " the non-Muslim life tradition" (with subdivisions of "archaic tradition and pre-Islamic religions" and "the Arrogants tradition (MUSTAKBERIN)"). Such various conceptions of Sunnah permit him to consider modernity not as a self-determining matter but as a variety of life tradition and to overcome the consequent problems of theoretical and practical involvement with modernity. By this multiplexed conceptions, Furthermore, he is able to criticize and reconstruct some aspects of Sunnah with reliance to the other aspects asymmetrically.