Mullā Ṣadrā’s Political Legacy: Ṣadrā’s Theory of Justice and the Religio-Political Authority in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Year 2020, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 253 - 294, 31.12.2020

Amir Rastin Toroghı Seyyed Mortaza Hosseini Shahrudı

https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2020.112.210

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Apart from its philosophical attractions, the religio-political potentials in the transcendent philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī (d. 1050/1641) have helped to its dominance in the seminary and university in contemporary Iran. It seems that one of the reasons for the state’s support for al-Ḥikmah al-mutaʿāliyah in Iran after the Islamic revolution is the potentials existing in this philosophy to justify the establishment of a religious government based on the discourse of Shīʿī political authority, conspicuously the doctrine of walāyat-i faqīh (the guardianship and governance of the jurist). This article aims to demonstrate how Mullā Ṣadrā’s theory of moral and social justice could have provided an intellectual ground for the establishment of an Islamic state in the Shīʿī sense.

Keywords

Mullā Ṣadrā, justice, moral justice, social justice, authority of the jurist (walāyat-i faqīh)

Thanks

We are indebted to Dr. Fardin Jamshidi Mehr who provided us with some beneficial notes on the topic and Dr. Sayeh Meithami whose generous and useful feedback was so supportive. Sincere thanks also go to Mahsa Raeisi Sattari and Shima Pooyanejad for their helpful comments on the English text.

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