Journal of Islamic Political Studies
Volume:6 Issue: 11, Winter-Spring 2024

The present study aims at investigating the political obligation of migrating to Yathrib (now Medina) in the Quran with an approach of reviewing the performance of the Prophet’s Companions. According to the results of the study, conducted through a descriptive-analytical method, we infer from the Quran’s verses that migration to Medina was obligatory for all Companions. Most Sunnites, based on their accepted foundation – i.e. the theory of the Companions’ justice – and adducing the verse 100 of Surah Towba, have considered the Companions’ performance in the political movement of migration as accepted and with no deficiency. However, this is not an acceptable view, for a number of Muslims in Mecca and Bedouins around Medina got into political disobedience and refused to migrate. On the other hand, after the migration, it seems that a group of emigrants returned to desert without getting permission from the Prophet and got into the Arabization after the migration. Considering the obligation of migration to Medina between the year one and eight of hijrah, all these three groups – i.e. Meccans not migrated, Bedouins not migrated, and those who returned from Medina to desert, committed a major sin. On the one hand, the divine consent mentioned in verse 100 of Surah Towba cannot mean the rightness of the performance of all of them regarding the issue of migration, because satisfaction from the emigrants mentioned in the verse is not absolute. Rather, it is conditioned on the continuity of faith and righteous deeds, while the Quranic and historical propositions do not confirm this continuity for all Companions.

The present study aims at answering the following question: “What are the characteristics of Islamic politics and its executers?” Thus, using a structural-thematic method, we tried to present a precise image of the characteristics of the Islamic politics in the context of the concepts found in the Surah Jum‘a (Sheikh-zada, 1390 SH). In this regard, we studied the methods and strategies of discovering the main purpose of the Surah (context of the verses, the name of the Surah, investigating the Meccan/ Medinan origin of the Surah, investigating the Beautiful Divine Names); features of the Islamic politics (sanctity, might, wisdom); the characteristics of the executer of the Islamic politics; Divinity and Lordship in the Surah Jum‘a, and the Friday Prayer and remembrance of God. Besides, we tried to show that the concepts of the Quranic surahs and verses are the main source for explaining the characteristics of the Islamic politics and its executers. The results will help the Islamic politicians to be able to step in the path of realization of the Islamic politics. The results showed that the main theme in the Surah Jum‘a is leading the Islamic nation to sanctity, might and wisdom. Besides, the necessity of religious authority (Wilāya) and authority-centrism in Islamic governments after the Prophet and paying special attention to the ritual-political obligation of Friday Prayer are considered as the main themes of the Surah.

The present study aims at explaining the relationship between justice and one’s innate nature and its relation to government based on Martyr Motahhari’s views. In this regard, we attempted to refer to his views about society, government, justice and innate nature to explain the philosophical foundations proper for the theory of justice and, accordingly, to investigate the duties of the Islamic regime that must pursue, continuously, the realization of progress based on justice. The research method was descriptive-analytical and the results showed that social justice will realize if the government fulfills the natural and acquired rights of the individuals and the society totally. According to the theory of Islamic justice, the first duty of the government is to prepare the ground for flourishment of the natural talents of members of the society. Another duty of the government is to realize the natural affairs of the society that will be acquired through the extension of the individual innate features. And its third duty pertains to the affairs that create natural rights through ultimate causality. Besides, according to the principle of association of ‘right’ and ‘obligation’, people also have duties in relation to the government.

The present study aims at answering the following basic question: “Based on what thought Ayatollah Naʾini believes in the people’s right to supervise the state, while other opinions such as no right to supervision (based on people’s religious competence) or supervision based on natural rights (substantive) in the Western thought are proposed in this atmosphere and have some followers?” The research method is argumentative and philosophical analysis and the study claims that Naʾini has used his own divine anthropological foundations and believes in innate/divine rights on the one side and in existence of a right-obligation relationship on the other hand, believing in a right for people to supervise the state. The results suggest that for Naʾini, the human – due to his being human – enjoys some pre-religious rights, and he considers them as the essentials of the human’s life, survival and perfection, believing that as long as the members of the society do not enjoy them, the society is afflicted with laxity and indolence. Through the conscious presence and supervising the state, people can prevent the emergence of despotism and autocracy as well as oppression and injustice, and can remove obstacles in the way of just system to prepare the ground for flourishment of the individuals’ talents.

The present study aims at exploring the foundations of mystical knowledge in Arba‘een march. The research method is descriptive-analytical and it shows that whatever plays a role in Arba‘een needs to be recognized, including recognition of the six following items: reason, religious law (Shar‘), nature, habit, convention, and oneself or self-knowledge. Arba‘een march is a religious and rational practice. This great event is in line with reason, religious law (Shar‘), nature, convention and habit. Arba‘een march is confirmed by the Quran, argument and mysticism. It is, for wayfarers, the field of wayfaring, and for the religious people, it is practicing the Sharia law, and is the assistant for people of purification. The people of Sharia, self-purification and truth, each can enjoy their special privileges from this march in proportion to their souls’ capacities.

The present study aims at investigating Najaf seminary center and the challenges of the civil state in Iraq. The research method is descriptive-analytical and we used interview as the tool for gathering data. To do so, we had a dialogue with a considerable number of religious authorities, mujtahids and educators of seminary about the most important components of civil state. The results showed that many of the clerics in Najaf seminary acknowledge the hegemony of the thought of the great Sheikh’s pupils over that seminary and analyze the present seminary in Najaf as the extension to that thought. In this way, they maintain that this seminary’s opposition to establishment of a Shiite government in Iraq is a foundational opposition. Most of them favored a civil state or parliament system based on constitutional law and considered Ayatollah Sistani’s defense of it as the last word in that seminary. Of course, the scholars and clerics in Najaf refrained from using the term ‘secular state’, and it seems they consider it inconsistent with the religious doctrines. Accordingly, they used the very term of ‘civil state’. The clerics in Najaf insisted on the concept of ‘citizenship’ – containing the legal rights and obligations – as the most important common factor among the ethnic and religious group in Iraq. The Najaf clerics’ answer regarding the causes for encouraging the Shiites to take part – along with other inhabitants of Iraq – in establishing a government has less religious motivation. In answering the question on why the clerics in Najaf do not demand a Shiite government, most of them prefer to use the phrase ‘not necessary’.

The political-social evolutions in societies have always been under the influence of the relationship between the ‘agent’ and the ‘structure’. If the agent’s agendum preserves the status quo, the structure survives and experiences less internal challenges. But if the agent pursues a change in the status quo, the governing structure faces serious crises and internal tensions. In the present study, Ba‘th party of Iraq is considered as a ‘structure’ and the great religious authorities in those days have been displayed as ‘agents’ in relation to that party. Accordingly, we have tried to investigate the political action of Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Sadr as an agent who pursued a change in the status quo with a (comparative) glimpse at Ayatollah Khoui’s approach, who chose to preserve the status quo in Iraq under the ruling of Ba‘th Party as his strategy. In this article, we have used an analytical method to analyze the structure of the agency under the authority of Muhammad Baqir Sadr and his relation to the power structure. To do so, we first explore his mentality and his theoretical and jurisprudential foundations regarding the Shiite paradigm in the Occultation Period, and investigate some of the indices of his political thought. Then, to clarify his temporal context and background, we will study the effects of those evolutions on his mentality as an agent. Naturally, the success of the Iranian Islamic revolution had a tremendous effect on that agent’s thought. Then, we will refer to the traditional structures governing the institution of religious authority in Najaf and its priorities to clarify his differences from other contemporary agents. Among them, we may mention Ayatollah Hakim and Ayatollah Khoui, each of whom had a different model and priority in facing with the official structure of power and Ba‘th Party. In the end, we will show that Sadr’s desirable model, as an agent, was total confrontation with that structure and moving towards its total abolition, and that he used all the social assets of the religious institution for that purpose. This was while other agents were pursuing interactions with the official structure and preserving Najaf seminary as their priority.