Social Change in the Experience and Thought of Imam Musa Sadr

This article examines the experiences and thoughts of Imam Musa Sadr on social change. It first narrates his experience in creating a social change, and then emphasizes an approach and theory that supports this experience. This review involves answering six basic questions about social change including the nature, method, trends, conditions, factors, and agents of social change. To this end, while studying the ideas of the activists and observers of this change, their works have been studied analytically. The study shows that Imam Musa Sadr defines social change as an essential necessity for monotheism and human evolution, and regards it as a continuous revolution. He believes in a gradual change that focuses on service to human beings, while taking into account the existential and objective conditions of social change, and considering the cultural context to be the cause of creating social change. In the field of managing the changes, while designing the two dichotomies of people / elites and movement / organization, he believes that the necessary force for change is created through a "popular movement".