Interaction Between Religion and Democracy in Political Thought of Ayatollah Taleqani

The present article is an attempt to study relations between Islam and democracy in the thought of Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Taleqani. In the first place the principles of the rule of people in his viewpoints is analyzed and then the concept of Islamic Republic in his thought is discussed. Attempts will be made to study his doctrine a democratic government on the basis of religion as well as his viewpoints about council and freedom as the main pillars of his political thought. It should be mentioned that due to his premature death, Ayatollah Taleqani could not intellectually contribute to the establishment of the Islamic system in a practical manner. Therefore the rapid changes and intellectual-political crises of the post-revolution era entailed that the Islamic system under the leadership of Imam Khomeini takes a different course which may have been eventually different from some approaches of Ayatollah Taleqani – which belonged only to a short period after the victory of the revolution. Since the main objective of this article is to study the viewpoints of Ayatollah Taleqani, we are not going to refer to those differences.