نشریه حکومت اسلامی
سال شانزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 62، زمستان 1390)

Wilayah (guardianship) is considered one of key words of Islamic political thought. Having a clear and proper understanding of the meaning of this term is the key to understanding the political system in Islam and the theory of the guardianship of Islamic jurist in particular. So many doubts have, in recent years, been raised against the political thought and system which are based on the guardianship of Islamic jurist, which is an outcome of lack of of proper understanding of the meaning of this term.This article seeks through a scientific study to expound and bring out the proper meaning of the term in question in the light of Islamic political thought.

The instances, characteristics, effects and objectives of human rights are an indispensable part of the ideological-political thought and theoretical assumptions, and the basic principles of human rights are founded on these theoretical perceptions and perspectives.In addition to its observance of the intellectual reasoning and tangible and empirical tools of epistemology, the perspective of Islamic law on human rights pays special attention to revaltory resources, considering safeguarding paramount interests of mankind as one of the aims of Islamic law.So, there is a complete comformity between duty-centredness and right-centredness in Islam whose all injunctions assume to have "right" and "freedom".As for the western view, which relies on humanism in determining the system of human rights, it provides no real meaning of "right" in its claim of "right-centredness", and the rights and kinds of freedom that the West assumes are either superficial or negative. These rights do give a person theoretical facilities, but they do not provide him/her with the means by which he/she can obtain these rights and kinds of freedom.

According to the basic princples of Isalmic government, a political leader and governor of a society or guardian jurist has the authority to issue governmental judgement. The present essay elaborates on whether or not this jurisdiction of the guardian jurist is recognized in the constitution of the Islamic Repubic of Iran and on what, in principle, the status which the judgements taken by a guardian jurist has in the legal system and basic rights of the Islamic Repulic of Iran.This research is based on the assumtion that not only the governmental judgement is instituted in the consititution, but also such judgements, due to the Islamic identity of the system, represent one of the sources of the basic rights which is, in itself, a priviledge from which other legal systems including liberal democratic systems deprived, and a priviledge by means of which any political system can stand against serious challenges and coup plots and come out safe.

The doctrine of natural law is one of the fundamental philosophical teachings of the discourse on human rights (natural right) in political philosophy. The new period of the studies about natural law, which statred with the Enlightenment and is still going on, witnessed the development of a variety of theories about natural law. Neo-Thomistic and non Neo-Thomistic theses of natural law constitute the scheme of the theories of natural law of the new era. Neo-Thomistic theses are divided into two kinds: traditional and modern. All these theses have a number of shortcomings which are dealt with in this paper.The most important of the new Neo-Thomistic theses of matural law is Finnis's interpretation of this theory. Finnis’s theory is given special emphasis because the views he presented about natural law in the western world are consideved to be of great importance. This article expounds and comments on the main features of Finnis's theory. The author's observations are the outcome of years of investigation and study into the works of this philosopher.

Among the important subjects related to human rights is the question of the good government which can safeguard human rights. Islamic government is the best type of government that can safeguard human rights becaue of the unique characteristics it enjoys. One of the distinctive characteristics of Islamic government which distinguishes it from other types of governments is its being based on the legitimacy granted by God.The belief in the God-given legitmacy of government includes absolute divine authority, negation of tyrannical governments, statesmen's taking control over it and supervising its work to prevent involvement in personal interests and accomplishment of personal objectives, statesmen's readiness of assuming responsibility and so on. All these cantribute to establishing human rights for human societies.We have tried in this article to prove this mutual relationship by relying on the authentic sources of Islamic fiqh and some texts taken from these sources.

Judgement literally means prohibition, knowledge and decision making. But in the expression "governmenttal judgement'', this word refers to the decisions made by a jurist of Islamic law (hākim-e shar‘) for managing the affairs of society and furthering people's interests in various aspects; like judicial, political, military affairs, penal laws, etc.Such a judgement, though made by the Prophet, an Imam or a faqih, is like a divine injunction made by God, and so it has a shar‘i property and shari essentials. Citing the Quranic verse of “iftira’”and the verse “ati‘ullāh” (obey Allah…), the author provides evidence to support this claim. Some religious scholars such and ‘Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, does not regard a governmental judgment absolutely as shar‘i (legitimate), even though it is given by the Prophet, an Imam or guardian jurist, but this view of ‘Allāmah Tabātabā’ī does not seem acceptable and it is open to criticism.

The present essay seeks to compare practical intellect with civilized rationalily (the intellect which functions in the area of civilization) to prepare the grounds for the constant functioning of practical approaches in transcendent spheres and for realization of religious doctrines. By means of an active intellect in religious thought, not only encountering secularization (negating the authority of religion from arena of life) becomes easy, but also the worldly and civilized efficiency of religious knowledge including theological studies and morality can be found in wide social arenas.