Journal of Islamic Political Studies
Volume:2 Issue: 4, Summer-Autumn 2020

The subject of this article is the analysis and explanation of revelation in Mullā Ṣadrā’s political philosophy. It claims that the analysis and explanation of revelation in Mullā Ṣadrā’s political philosophy lies in the framework of the tradition of Islamic political philosophy. In the tradition of Islamic political philosophy, analysis of revelation resolves two main issues regarding the political philosophy: government and law. Thus, with regard to analysis and explanation of revelation in Mullā Ṣadrā’s political philosophy, it is said that a prophet – the one who receives divine revelation, especially the Prophet Muhammad – enjoys the necessary features for being a ruler. In the next levels, the Infallible Imams also enjoy those features. Human’s social life and his social perfection require Sharīʿa (i.e. the religious law). The philosophy of the Sharʿ laws is rooted in acquiring divine knowledge and protecting lives and properties. The Sharʿ laws have been organized on the basis of the correspondence of the worlds, the effect of actions on the souls and the effect of soul’s states on body. Therefore, the Sharʿ laws lead, on the basis of the relationship between the worlds of sense and ideals and reason, to the mutual effect of the worlds. This article uses the method of analysis of the Islamic political philosophy and Mullā Ṣadrā’s political philosophy. The following is among the results of this study: the philosophy of jurisprudence or the legal philosophy, as explained by Mullā Ṣadrā, can have serious results in the realm of jurisprudence, law, politics and legislation.

The present study aims at a comparative investigation of the political interpretation of the Quran in Yūsuf Qaḍāwī's thought and that of ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī. Accordingly, we have dealt with an investigation of the Quran's influential intellectual features and political interpretation in the opinions of those two thinkers. The research method is based on the author-centered intentionalist reading model. In this model, the dominant political discourse of the time, the thinker's intention in writing, a thinker's mental world and his intellectual features influence the way of his political interpretation of the Quran. The results showed that in Qarḍāwī's view, Islam is both a religion and a political system. The Islamic state is a civil state and governs according to the Islamic laws and decrees. In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī's thought, religion has a social tint, and the politics and government have a secondary status and are among necessities of the society. ʿAllāmah's approach originates from the Shiite thought and Qarḍāwī's approach originates from the Sunnite one. The philosophical discussions in ʿAllāmah's social and political thought are highlighted, and the jurisprudential, the number of legal and independent discussions pertaining to political system and government is much more in Qarzāwī's thought compared to ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī. In both thinkers' thought, government is necessary for society and orientation of the political system is a divine orientation in the Quran's view. The Islamic state and the related discussions are found in the Quran, and 'the Quran' is the criterion for action in the Islamic society and government. The efforts of the two thinkers focus on offering a pure, genuine, constructive, motivating and system-making image of the Quran.

In the science of international politics, subjects such as "the nature of international system", "anarchy", "order" and "change" are considered as the content concepts. Each of the theories of international relations explains the concepts and, accordingly, presents its formation of the milieu of international system and its subdivisions. The present study is placed under the great question of what explanation the level of civilizational analysis in international politics presents for "order" in international system. It specifically deals with the following question: "If we evaluate the 'order' in the realm of a region – such as west Asia or a wider area such as the Islamic world – using the level of civilizational analysis, what formation of 'order' will it offer?" It seems that the hypothesis of 'level of civilizational analysis' in the international politics in dividing the regions of the world presents a new plan and transmits it beyond the dualism of global analysis/ regional analysis. Thus, it explains the campaigns inside the international system on the basis of presenting a new formation of 'order', the rules for its formation and the sources effective in its formation. The level of civilizational analysis analyzes the order in the Islamic world by considering different forms of Islamic civilizations (or civilization trends) inside the Islamic world, and explains the behavioral campaigns (convergent/ divergent) on the basis of hierarchal division of civilization inside the Islamic world.

The Shiite political jurisprudence in the Constitutional Period was much bold. Ākhūnd Khurāsānī and his pupils were among the most prominent jurists – in the Constitutional period – who had many innovations in the constitutionalist thought. One of the great achievements of these jurists in the political arena is the relationship between people and the government. These jurists had, in their temporal conditions as the representatives of the great Shiite tradition, an important role in modernism of the Iranians. They did not stop in the past doctrines; rather, they used the political and social ordinances of the Shiite jurisprudence; and using the capacities of legal reasoning according to the conditions of time, place and demands of the time, they opened a new chapter in the Iranian and Islamic thoughts. Before the Constitutional period, people had mainly no right in the government, but there appeared a change in the discussions. The great Shiite scholars could highlight the people's status in the government by scrutiny and using the Islamic doctrines. Ākhūnd Khurāsānī and his co-thinkers, Mīrzā Nāʾīnī and Sheikh Ismāʿīl Maḥallātī, used new criteria in classification of governments, and opened way for people's participation.

The present article deals with an analytical and critical investigation of the traditionalist and anti-traditionalist readings of modernism, during the periods of Constitutionalism and 1st Pahlavi, in a comparative study of the thought and practice of ʿAllāmah Nāʾīnī and Reza Shah. This article tries to explain, by using the methodological facilities of hermeneutic phenomenology, the interpretive trend leading to the emergence of those two readings and find a way to discovering the logic effective in phenomenological emergence of those readings as interpretive systems in the contemporary Iran. Such an approach makes it possible for research to specify some of the consequences resulted from approaching those two readings. To do such an important task, as required by methodology, this article firstly investigates the individual and social lived experiences of ʿAllāma Nāʾīnī and Reza Shah, and secondly identifies and studies the hermeneutic background leading to formation of those two readings in phenomenological emergence of their experiences.

The main question of the present article is as follows: "what are the features of the state from the viewpoint of a group of Muslim thinkers known in the framework of transcendental philosophy?" The claim of this article is that the specific aspect of the state from the viewpoint of a group of the philosophers of the transcendental philosophy lies in the type of viewing the rational necessity of the state, in explaining the relationship between religion and state and between religion and politics, and specially, in the people's role and status in the state. Thus, the present article attempts to use the approach of political philosophy and a descriptive-analytical method to deal with some of the features of the state. In this article, the abovementioned claim is investigated by considering the opinions of the philosophers of the transcendental philosophy, including Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī and Imam Khomeini as well as some other thinkers of this philosophical school. The consequences of the discussion are reflected especially in delineating the rational necessity and evidences of the presence of state, the scope of the state's interference in the society, explanation of the features of undesirable state, the people's role and presence in determining their destiny and backing up the state, and the type of their view of the relationship between the religion and the politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran.