The Challenging Face of Power; From the Necessary Evil to the Existential Good with Emphasis on Imam Khomeini’s Political Ideology

The purpose of the present article is to explain the identity of power and to examine its political implications. In the first part, the article explores three perspectives on the identity of power: 1. Power is evil; 2. Power has a neutral and instrumental nature; 3. Power is good. In the second part, the political implications of those views are pointed out and it is said that their output in the field of politics leads to three powers: 1. Temporary power; 2. Conventional power; 3. Transcendent power. The first part is descriptive-analytical and the part has been presented by inferential method based on the theory of signification in the knowledge of logic and principles of jurisprudence. To design the blueprint of the article, we have used a conceptual framework to first of all depict the position of the discussion among the various concepts of political science, and secondly, power is a concept that has been tackled with conflicting approaches. Owing to this fact, it is necessary to have a fundamental and substantive view in regards to the topic of power. This article defends the view of Imam Khomeini (r.a) as a sage of the Transcendent Theosophy who has been teaching the Transcendent Theosophy for more than twenty years and considers power to be inherently good and politically, it leads to the transcendent power. The transcendent power has a spiritual, moral and divine approach to politics. It has nothing to do with secularism, and since it considers power to be inherently good, it must necessarily be given to the most spiritual and pure human beings. Therefore, being trustworthy is the essence of transcendent power, and the advent of Imam Zamaan (a.t.f.s), which is the day of the emergence of the world power of Islam, will be accomplished according to this explanation of power.