نشریه سیاست پژوهی ایرانی
پیاپی 1 (پاییز 1393)

The subject of discussion is germane to an Islamic system based on the theory of jurisprudent’s authority, and from a jurisprudential and religious perspective, a fully qualified jurist must lead it on the one hand, and on the other hand, a president is introduced as the executive in‐charge of affairs. Thus, in the case of any trouble between them, what are the correct and logical solutions from the perspective of political jurisprudence?
This paper investigates and elaborates on the relation between the two pillars of government in the Islamic system by analyzing the jurisprudential and religious principles and constitutional articles as to the supreme leader and president.
Of the advantages of this discussion is that it evinces that if, from the perspective of religio‐jurisprudential principles, the supreme leader is in charge of all governmental affairs and has the right to deal with executive issues and affairs, the role of the president is either a ceremonial one or to the extent of an executive deputy, and the votes that people cast are either for the expediency of the Islamic society or out of kindness and favor to people on the part of the ruler.
Assuming that, the supreme leader will, therefore, be accountable for the present issues and events; however, if a president is in charge of all executive affairs and holds a supervisory and controlling position, it is the president that will be responsible for events and the actions by members of the executive, given his executive power.

The political thought of Iran can be divided into two parts: the old and the new. The new era of the Iranian polical thought started 150 years ago. During this 150‐year‐old period, Iran has witnessed three strands to its political thought. First, developmentalist political thought, which started with Iranians’ familiarity with the West and lasted until the World War II. That strand to the political thought in that time was mainly concerned with compensation for political retardation, development through constitutionalism and the establishment of a constitutional government. The second was the identitist political thought, which started from the World War II and still continues. This strand is primarily involved in creating the Iranian identity in general and the political identity in particular. The third is the contemporary political thought, which has focused on the issues of tradition and modernity and academic intermixture of the two. This thought was brought up by a group of Iranian intellectuals in the 1370s. The present paper tries to idenfy this new polical thought in Iran.

The present paper answers the following questions: What readings do the political discourses of Principlism and Reformism present about freedom, how do they differ and why does the scope of freedom in either one of the two perspectives seem different? What is the position of freedom in Imam Khomeini’s political discourse?
In the post‐revolutionary Iran, it was the jurisprudential political discourse that could gain the upper hand in presenting its own interpretation of freedom and was accepted by the majority of people, and after its division into the two political discourses of principlism and reformism, it demonstrated two different readings of the issue of freedom.
The first hypothesis and answer by the present paper is that the division depends on the perspective that each of the camps may have on the concept of republic. The perspective, which gives more color to Islamism and Divine legitimacy in the phrase Islamic Republic, naturally pays more attention to the authority of an appointed ruling jurist; in some way, that perspective considers religion as the cornerstone and freedom as resulting from it, and interprets freedom within the framework of Islamic canon law. Contrarily, the other perspective, which seeks to highlight the republic in the phrase, naturally focuses more on the meaning and concept of freedom and deems freedom fundamental and even it explicates the popularity of the canon law on the basis of freedom.

The Ismailites believed in the imamate of Ismail, son of Imam Ja’far Sadiq (pbuh). At first, they rose to power in Egypt and after that they established the Egyptian government of the Fatimid. After al‐Mustansir Billāh, the eighth Fatimid caliph died, his vizier stopped Nizar, his oldest son, from ascending to the throne, causing a deep division in the Isma’ilite. Al‐Mosta’la, the younger son of al‐Mustansir Billāh, and the husband of the vizier’s sister, could ascend to the throne with the help of the vizier. Following that, the Isma’ilites divided into the Nizarite and Mosta’valite. The Persians who believed in Nizar’s caliphate became known as the Persian Nazirites. In that sect, Hassan bin Sabah, a leading, complicated figure and a patriot as well, took a military stance to fight the Seljuk after the conquest of the Alamut castle, and adopted murdering as a method for meeting political and military goals. He had a particular perspective on the Islamic canon law and interpreted it in favor of his power interests.
The brutality by Hassan bin Sabah caused that period to be known as the violent era of the Isma’ilites. After that period and the annihilation of the Alamut castle by the Mongols, Aqa‐khani Isma’ilites, a branch of Nizarite Isma’ilites, took a different way and adopted modernity as a new strategy because they were defeated, from a political point of view, and even assassination could not help reach their wants. Hence, the period can be called the Isma’ilite era of modernity.
In that period, as a reformist politician, the third Aqa‐khan, the Isma’ilites’ imam, became an international figure, and the fourth Aqa‐khan, besides following on his father’s footsteps, strengthened his position with modernity by expanding networks of social, economic and cultural development. In fact, the Nizarite Isma’ilites took a violent strategy in order to gain power and fight the Arab and Turks’ religiopolitical domination; however, because they were defeated, a modernist strategy was pursued by their Aqa‐khani branch.
This claim is investigated with a descriptive‐analytic method and by means of library resources through analyzing the history of the movement of Nizarite Isma’ilites and explaining their strategies to gain power and fight the Arab and Turks’ religio‐political domination.

The Islamic Awakening Movement, which has stirred up uprisings among the Islamic nations to regain their lost prestige and glory, is a sign of rising and awareness in the Islamic nation, whose most important features are Muslims’ self‐awareness of their own power, return to the Quran and religious teachings as well as reliance on the rich Islamic culture. The awakening is indebted to religious scholars’ awakening efforts, in which Shiite clergymen have played a very significant role.
One of the leading figures in advancing the movement was Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Kazim Tabatabayi Yazdi, who made a lot of endeavors on the way of fighting the dominance of foreign powers and preserving the independence of Islamic territories during his precious lifetime. His awakening actions can be investigated from four angles, i.e., fighting the colonialist Russian and British powers, farsightedness and awakening in the case of the Constitutional Movement and fighting the economic domination of the West, and the important part in awakening Muslims by this leading jurisprudent can be explicated.

Located in the cross‐section of Asia, Europe and Africa, Egypt, with its history and capacity in leading the Arab world, is of the most important countries in the Middle East, with which all regional and ultra‐regional powers need to have political interaction. However, Iran‐Egypt ties in the past thirty years, i.e., after the Iranian Islamic Revolution, were severed. Irrespective of Islamic Republic of Iran’s political perspective on the region and the international world, various factors have caused the Iran‐Egypt ties to face tensions and opposition and the relations between these two regional powers to face challenges, despite divergent and convergent ups and downs in recent years. Hence, the present paper aims at answering the question of influential factors in the divergence of Ian‐Egypt ties after Iran’s Islamic Revolution. In this regard, although it seems that the divergence in the relations between Iran and Egypt has been affected by interpretations and differing policies of political ruling systems in both countries on the regional and international issues and Egyptian officials’ concerns about the effect of Islamic Revolution on the Egypt’s domestic affairs as well, the role the US and Israel has been of the most important factor in the tensions and conflict in their relations in recent years. However, differing viewpoints and discursive behaviors of the political systems reigning over both countries, influenced by the principles of value, norms and identity of the political systems of both Iran and Egypt, are the most important factors in the divergence of the two countries and important barriers to their convergence.