Journal of Islamic Political Studies
Volume:5 Issue: 9, Winter-Spring 2023

The main goal in this study is extracting the principles of passive defense from the Quranic teachings and its deterrent role in confronting the military threats. The present study is founded on the hypothesis that the principles of passive defense are extractable from the verses of the Holy Quran and their deterrent role can be explained in the light of the Quranic teachings. The research method is descriptive-analytical using the method of purposive analysis of Quranic verses and by relying on library sources. The results show that the Holy Quran refers to the principles of passive defense in many verses, and those principles play a prominent deterrent role in a processual form. That is, first, using the principle of ‘concealment’, we try to prevent enemies from seeing the special centers. Then, in case they are seen, we use the principles of ‘camouflage’ and ‘deception’ to prevent enemies from identifying those centers. In case they are identified, we consider the principle of ‘location’ to prevent those centers from being targeted. And in case they are targeted, we use the principles of ‘strengthening’, ‘dispersion’ and ‘announcement’ to make them invulnerable. If they become vulnerable, then, we use the principle of ‘management of crisis’ to reconstruct and renew them for using them again.

The experiences of Islamism in the 20th and the early 21st centuries are associated with a variety of images: from fundamentalists’ radical Islam (like ISIS) to moderate Islamists` democratism (like the Ennahda Movement). As we have witnessed in the aftermath of Arab Spring, this variety is continuing to affect any speculation on the future hegemonies of Islamism. Which formations can one imagine about the future of Islamism, and what variables would be of great importance? The present research hypothesizes that there might still be two potential alternatives or, in the sense of Weber, Ideal types: civil Islamic state vs. religious one. The actualization of both ties with the way of interaction of intellectual variables and social conditions. At the intellectual level, the ‘approach to religion’ is the matter. It means while rational interpretation of the Sharia (Ijtihad) would pave the way for democracy promotion under a civil conception of an Islamic state, the mythical (Fundamentalist) one, especially in combination with instrumental rationality, will lead to Islamic totalitarianism under a religious conception of an Islamic state. However, the actualization of any imagined alternatives is determinately intertwined with the quality of some social variables such as economic development, national sovereignty, cultural atmosphere, and political opportunity structure. The paper maintains that the experience of various Islamist movements, from the early 20th century, provides facts to justify the hypothesis. To do so, it will articulate the collected data within a ‘comparative analysis’ framework concentrating on ‘the role of interaction between intellectual framework and the social condition’ in the practice of the main typical trends in Islamism: the moderates and the radicals. Ultimately, the paper seeks to highlight ‘the past’ for speculating the possible ‘future’.

The growing importance of paying attention to people and the inefficiency of liberal democracy led theorists to critique this political paradigm and offer alternative paradigms. One of the most important models presented in the Western world is Habermas's deliberative democracy, and in the Islamic world, Ayatollah Khamenei's religious democracy. Both models are based on the critique of liberal democracy and the emphasis on the position of the people in the political system and the reconstruction of various arenas of political action. This study tries to answer the following question using the documentary method “What is the sphere of political action in Ayatollah Khamenei's theory of religious democracy and Habermas's deliberative democracy?” The findings of the research indicate that both theories, while criticizing liberal democracy and considering the instrumentalization of the role of the people according to their different semantic systems, have revived various areas of political action in the spheres of establishment, participation and supervision.

The present study aims at investigating the sovereignty and Theo-democracy in Sayyid Abul-Aꜥla Mawdudi’s thought. The research method is descriptive-analytical and shows that Sayyid Abul-Aꜥla Mawdudi has founded his political theory on the divine absolute sovereignty, but along with the divine absolute sovereignty, it tries to use mechanisms such as caliphate and council to fix the people’s position in that theory. According to his theory, although sovereignty belongs specifically to God, the man can be enforcer of divine commands if he has the qualifications for divine caliphate. Accordingly, one cannot classify Mawdudi’s theory merely under the theories pertaining to theocracy. Mawdudi who was attentive of this fact, fabricated the term theo-democracy in addition to using theocracy. Altogether, we can consider Mawdudi’s view as the closest one to the Shiite view among the Sunnites’ views. This is while in the position of comparison, Mawdudi has not remained faithful to his own theoretical foundations.

The subject of the present article is the linguistic comparison of terms whose semantic foundation is linked with political ‘justice’, and the Muslim and European thinkers have used them in their opinions. This study aims at representing the lexical differences considered in ‘coinage’ and ‘denotation’ of any of these terms, making the status and structure of justice different in any semantic world. Paying attention to this fact can facilitate, and make precise, our understanding of the norms focused on justice as applied by the thinkers in this sphere. The main question is what the distinction between the items of the vocabulary network with semantic centrality of justice is. To answer, by relying on the philology method as a branch of interpretive methodology, we investigated the historical denotation of three words of ‘justice’, ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ and explained the fundamental difference of the perception of the Muslim thinkers of ‘justice’, compared to the semantic world of western thinkers. The results showed that paradigmatic transitions are determinant in our perception of justice. This transition in the West has led the abstract perception of justice to the strategic level and practical equations. However, in spite of the change in political paradigms in the Islamic world and the alteration and evolution of the Muslims’ philosophical system, the Muslim theorists have neglected the social extension of this fundamental concept.

The principle of ‘rule of law’ in Muslim countries follows the epistemological foundation of theocracy and is classified under the model of legal rationalists. Implementing the plan of development from the eighteenth century in Muslim country has caused the pragmatism to affect the process of implementation of Sharia in Muslim countries gradually and changed the foundation of the principle of rule of law. In the present study, we have shown that the evolution based on the epistemological effect of pragmatism is founded on the epistemic basis of theocracy in implementing Sharia. The abovementioned effect has appeared first in the civil law and then in the public law and the theory of the state. Accordingly, implementing Sharia has faced a non-foundational attitude and its model has shifted from traditional natural law to modern natural law. The result of this change is giving principality to the human-like rationality in creating the legal rule. Supporting private ownership, human rights and civil rights are among the consequences of the effect of pragmatism in creating the legal rule. The epistemological effect of pragmatism is evaluable in the level of philosophy of law in the Muslims countries. Thus, the pragmatic approach considers the law as a type of perceptions of the practical intellect, and its epistemological foundation is on transition from Kant’s transcendental intellect and making use of instrumental intellect.

Among the Muslim thinkers, Mirza Naʾini has a considerable role in explaining the Islamic government and state-making as well as the constitutionalist movement. The main question of this study is as follows: “How was the semantic network and Islamic state-making in the constitutional era?” To answer that question, we must say that Mirza Naʾini starts his discussion on the government from its necessity and maintains that people are the foundation of any government. He has attempted to use the foundations of the Shiite jurisprudence and explain the concepts such as politics, constitutional law, law, assembly, freedom and equality to prepare the ground for the public order in the constitutionalism era. Naʾini, like other Shiite thinkers, maintains that the desirable government is that of the impeccable Imams, but he believes in constitutional government and establishment of a state on its basis due to necessity in the Occultation Period. The semantic and conceptual network of Naʾini’s state is based on the Shiite thought, and wherever the society (constitutional revolution) departed from this network, leaning towards the semantic network outside its homeland (i.e. the western constitutionalism), the movement failed.