Governmentality in the thought of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani; foundations and requirements

By the emergence of Modernity in Iran in Qajar Era many intellectuals believed in developing reformations in Iran’s Community. Besides reformations, the society of Iran should be awakened from deep sleep by thinking transformation and reach Modernity and this issue is evident in all works of intellectuals in Qajar. Undoubtedly many trips of intellectuals of this era to European countries have influenced their thoughts. Pre-constitutional intellectuals enumerated the reasons for Iran’s mustiness as despotisms, lack of legal governance, invasion of Arabs to Iran and finally religion and superstitions. So they tried to find a solution for solving these problems. They became familiar with modern government elements in West and proposed some solutions for mustiness of Iran like: reformation of governance structure, making law, reformation or changing the procedure, renewing ancient traditions, eliminating or reforming religion, etc. the thoughts of these intellectuals aren’t limited to a same realm of meaning and the method of each case is different for solving the problems of the country. However, their thought is related to modern governance. Among the pre-constitutional intellectuals is Mirza Agha Khan Kermani. He found out the reasons for Iran’s mustiness by observing western countries’ situation and comparing it with Iran. He became aware of Modern governance elements and criticized traditional situation of society of Iran and tried to find a solution for solving this crisis.

The current paper is based on analytical-descriptive method and governance theory of Michel Foucault and examines perception of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani of nature of Modern governance on the basis of his work, seven treatises.  The problem is that what are the basics of modern governance in the thought of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani? The hypothesis of this paper is that Mirza Agha Khan Kermani criticized the nature of traditional system of Iran and his different perceptions of Modernity and modern governance led to a different interpretation of mustiness. About the research literature we should say that some works have been written about thoughts of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani that the most important ones are Facing with Modernity by Abdollah Ansari, Basics of Modern Government in Thinkers’ Perspective in Constitutional Era by Shah Mohammadi, Thoughts of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani by Feridon Adamiyat. These works have examined dimensions of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani’s thought.

Mirza Agha Khan Kermani is one of the intellectuals of Qajar Era. His thought is full of nationalism, documenting the governance right of nation, freedom, fighting with Russian and English colonialism, fighting with despotism, litigation, human rights, Islamic unity thought and criticizing social situation (Ajoudani, 2014: 79). He criticized the nature of traditional system in Iran and his different thinking tendencies have influenced his perception of Modernity and modern governance elements.This has caused that he has a different perception to lagging behind. One of the modern governance factors in his thoughts is national government. He considers the reason of the emergence of government the human being’s requirement to meet his needs and necessity of cooperation with others in meeting them. In his opinion (Kermani, 1945: 69) establishing a society and necessity of leader I the factor of people’s solidarity and prevents disunion in society and it is considered as main motivation of community to modernity.  Kermani considers government a necessary tool for society progress (Kermani, 280). His attitude to government represents establishing a legal system based on Modernity because it is “legally bound” and its nation enjoys freedom rights (Kermani, 1933:162). He reprimands despotic traditional government as the people finally make a revolution. It doesn’t seem that he wants to transform all political structure and make a revolution in it but conversely, he is reformist and tries to avoid despotism. In his opinion the existence of law is the main technique for modern governance. Kermani focuses on law as the main element in reaching democracy in Iran and believes that it has been from the beginning and it has been eliminated by Arab attacks and their dominance to Iran (Kermani, 285). Mirza Agha Khan considers lawlessness of this event as the origin of all misfortunes of Iranians.One of the structural components in the transformation of Mirza Aga Khan's thought is the unpreparedness of the society and the illiteracy of the majority of the society. In this regard, he considers the basis of life and the basis of human civilization in science and knowledge and considers science impossible without education (Kermani, 1945: 16). He did not believe that Iran was useless in science; But with the invasion of this land by the Arabs, they destroyed their sciences and technologies and burned the books of Iran out of jealousy and ignorance and trampled on the sciences of Iran for several thousand years (Kermani, 1989: 23). The intense attacks that Mirza Aga Khan repeatedly pays attention to the ignorant Arabs and their customs and traditions in his works show his attention to the political system that ruled the situation in Iran at that time.In the face of the modern government in the West, Kermani considers the ruling tyranny as one of the reasons for the backwardness of the governments in Iran, which seeks power and has not paid attention to the development and education of the nation and deprives the people of their rights and freedoms. Kermani gives people legal rights (Kermani, Bita b: 74-73). According to him, the people should be aware of their rights and the nation should form a great force for itself against the strength of the government. His emphasis on the concept of the nation and the granting of equal rights demonstrates his efforts to involve the people in the political life of the country in order to achieve a modern government in society.Kermani has a broad view of women's rights among intellectuals before him, so much so that he pays special attention to women in all his works. In the field of women's rights, she believes that they should have equal rights with men: "Women should have equal rights with men and learn them from any science, technology and industry, and be aware of good and bad, and women should not wear hijab and not speak. He is not forbidden from having sex with a foreign man so that he does not produce any sins and obscene acts at all ”(Kermani, 1933: 10). Therefore, he considers women to have equal rights with men as a condition for the perfect progress of the human world.

Mirza Aga Khan Kermani is one of the pioneers of modern government in Iran, who at the same time has tried to look at tradition in its historical context. His efforts to critique the past as an important component of his thought are influenced by the West. He can be considered an admirer of the ancient religion and cultural values ​​of Iran, which he tried to revive and to take the political foundations of the West, such as the establishment of national government, the expansion of social and political freedoms and finally the absolute separation of political institutions from religion. He emphasized. He brought government and religion together and considered the rule of law to be appropriate for Iranian society. Mirza Aga Khan's legacy not only reduced the role of tradition to advising the ruling system, but he also opposed and rejected the authoritarian system in the political sphere. Mirza Aga Khan Kermani, as one of the progressive intellectuals, called on the people to participate in the government and demanded the overthrow of the authoritarian government by the people.