Islamic Revolution Research
Year:2013 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:14

Great Shiite jurisprudents have tried to mention welayate faqih theory briefly or deeply within their discussions or separately. As we approach toward the contemporary era discussions about this theory expand and deepen. Imam Khomeini’s theory of unconditional welayate faqih is the most prominent of all. This article is aimed at discussing the birth, development and evolution of this original political theory.

Imam Khomeini searches the main infrastructure of security and its material and immaterial aspects in the domain of spiritual security and divine faith. He considers provision of security and peace as the objective of the government which entails transcendence, spiritual journey and divine guidance toward God. It also paves the ground to pay attention to God and worship Him and to go on a journey toward Him. From this perspective, only a ruling system which is just and fair with divine and ethical motives based on spiritual values can enforce security and control the society. This is the same ruling system sought by prophets and it will not be implemented without people’s participation and their consolidating role. Therefore, the primary goal of establishing a political system is to implement a monotheistic society based on spiritual security and faith in God. People’s participation and interaction will be a supplement and a tool to achieve this transcendental goal. This participation is kind of a responsibility and an obligation by shari’a [religious law] for everyone.

Having identified the position of intra-discourse elements of Imam Khomeini’s thinking, this article tries to perceive intra-discourse elements of Islamic-Shiite identity within the Islamic revolution process. It also tries to understand how Imam Khomeini could create a kind of movement and political mobilization along his identity aspirations benefitting from Islamic shari’a [Islamic Law] and events in socio-political life. In addition, some of these concepts which have played a role as pivotal concepts to explain Imam Khomeini’s identity discourse will be studied.

The author tries to identify security threats by Zionist regime against Iran in different fields from Pahlavi era up to the victory of Islamic revolution as well as Imam Khomeini’s reactions. To this end, having offered a comprehensive definition of the concept of security and having focused on the definition proposed by Copenhagen school of thought, the author has brought up these threats in four fields of political, economic, social and military threats. The author has mentioned Imam Khomeini’s reaction toward each field by studying his speeches. Finally some strategies have been suggested to tackle this regime taking the threats and Imam’s reactions into account.

In cases of riot and soft war, fundamental beliefs and values of a society are attacked. As the fundamental beliefs of a society change, mindsets change and new behavioral models are formed. With new behavioral models in place, supportive behaviors toward the political structure are replaced by challenging behaviors which are inclined toward deconstruction. By comparative method, this article tries to find the similarities and dissimilarities between riot and soft war. Through more study in this subject, it can be inferred that riot and soft war have the same goals, causes, methods, tools, audience, target group etc. However, they differ in identity and the factor of violence.

Islamic revolution of Iran was formed to topple two dominating paradigms namely communism and liberalism and to establish a civilization based on original Islamic culture. There is no doubt that only a society who believes in these aspirations and is willing to sacrifice its resources can follow these transcendental goals and causes. Therefore “standard society” is born; a society that, in addition to beliefs and values typical for any Islamic society, has some characteristics more important and more prominent due to its revolutionary nature. The current study tries to identify and compile these characteristic which are as follows regarding late Imam Khomeini’s and supreme leader’s viewpoints; belief in the correlation between religion and politics, thrift and altruism, national self-confidence, hope for the future, emphasis on work, the power of intellect.

The main question of this article is to what extent Islamic revolution of Iran can introduce itself as a role model for Arab countries regarding its historical background and common goals with recent uprisings in the region. It can be said that historical background and common goals of Islamic revolution of Iran and recent revolutions in middle-east which are based on religion-oriented, justice oriented and anti-arrogance discourses, are field through which Islamic revolution of Iran can set an example for recent revolutions in middle-east.

The phenomenon of Islamic awakening has strong relations with concepts dominating the Islamic revolution of Iran. Concepts such as fighting against the global arrogance, justice seeking, independence seeking, belief in people, democracy and freedom seeking with an Islamic approach and in the framework of the idea of Islamic revolution in a remarkable scale can be adapted to the dominating idea on the developments called Islamic awakening. In addition to essential characteristics of the idea of Islamic revolution this much adaptability, more than anything else, is caused by the interaction of this spiritual structure with Islamic societies over the past three decades.

In an Islamic society, it is the leader’s duty to spiritually guide people and manage the country. He also directs the state institutions to accurately enforce Islamic laws. For this reason, in an Islamic ruling system, wali faqih, who is an expert in Islamic issues, is in charge of leadership. During the past three decades, Islamic revolution of Iran has passed through important events and has victoriously +. Leader’s role is undoubtedly one of the important and determining factors to control the affairs and implement the objectives of Islamic republic of Iran. Therefore this article will study and analyze Imam Khomeini’s and supreme leader’s [ayatollah Khamenei] leadership position.

One of the most important characteristics of Islamic revolution of Iran making it distinct from other revolutions and cases of social uprising even religious ones is that this revolution paved the ground for the implementation of unconditional welayate faqih based on Islamic-Shiite political thought. On the other hand it is the constitution of Islamic republic of Iran which regulates the social behavior. There are different viewpoints about how welayate faqih and the constitution are related and whether wali faqih’s authority is limited or not. Some believe this authority is limited to items numerated in the constitution and believe legitimacy of his authority depends on the constitution’s permission while others believe welayate faqih is beyond the constitution for reasons such as welayate faqih is who legitimizes the constitution and is beyond it. Both groups have offered reasons for their opinions which will be criticized and studied in this article. The chosen opinion will be offered as well.