Author name:
اسعد تركي سواري
Supervisor name:
حميد فاضل حسن
Abstract:
The literature of leadership, imamah, ruling and guardianship I so rich along the human history. Thousands of scholars, thinkers and philosophers have spent their lives in understanding and explaining these terms. The main philosophical orientations identified are those related to the necessity of holding the society under a unique leadership to maintain peace, security, and social and cultural luxury; to defend the external threats; and to solve the continuous conflicts of interests among the members of that society. Therefore, the issue of leadership becomes so important from religious, philosophical and ideological perspectives. Of course, this is done to obtain a utopian model for such a wise and right leadership system.Philosophically and ideologically speaking, this issue is regarded a decisive marker for realizing and identifying the developed societies and their stable political systems. Also, these patterns of disloyalty, sufferings, and discontent are related to these missing standards of values, religion, philosophy of Allah's messengers. These missing standards led to practice other different systems and dilemmas as shown by Plato and Aristotle, like the systems of Autocracy, Aristocracy, Timocratie, Oligarchie, Democracy and Tyrannie. This last system believes that spreading mess among the society's members to convince the need for a tyranny to control.The present study sheds light on the concept of leadership in political thought among philosophers and thinkers to find out these unique characteristics of a wise and right leader. For this purpose, the concept of 'the guardianship of the Islamic jurist' in its theoretical domain is unique since it mixes between both the divine and democratic leadership; this is to involve consultation and people's interests in leadership to fill up the political vacuum and choose and observe their leaders and dismiss them indirectly by their jurists wherever there is a benefit for the society. This theory has successfully revealed a deep understanding of the current political situations; of course, this is to accommodate the jihadi mental perspective among Imamah's scholars.The present study aims at identifying the unique standards for the right legislative leadership; the one that coheres with the true human intuition and that is able to maintain peace, stability, civil improvement and social justice. It also aims atBconsidering the political thought and philosophical and value systems in Imamah toestablish such a theory of leadership. A theory that is founded and based on thefundamentals and standards of Islamic Imamah on the one hand , and that is agreedamong people to rule up the umah in the absence of the twelfth Imam (pbuh).Despite the difference among Imamah scholars about its limits, the theory of'the guardianship of the Islamic jurist' is a practical step and attempt to fill up theabsence of the twelfth Imam (pbuh). Being an evident indicator of the developedintellectual stance of Imamah scholars, it is regarded a unique golden environmentbetween originality and modernism, no more no less. The study hypothesized thatthe standard formula of leadership intermixes between the divine will and people'swill, based on the initial concept of harmony of these wills. The theoreticalframework of this leadership cannot be realized unless it finds its reality andexistence in a real leader and a society that is totally convinced by his values and hissystems of philosophy and beliefs. The study also hypothesized the existence of sucha theory of leadership in the Islamic political thought of Imamah. This theory ofguardianship is able to maintain and lead the human societies by civilsed techniquesand procedures, which are in turn suitable to stimulate the new changes in theintellectual and political life.The study is of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. The threesections of the first chapter deal with the chronological development of concepts like'leadership' and 'guardianship'. Section One examines the importance, the actualneed, patterns, procedures, and the legislative resources of leadership. The secondsection studies the oriental heritage of leadership especially in Mesopotamia, AncientEgypt, Ancient China and Ancient India. The third section studies the concept ofleadership in the Western perspectives, starting by those of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates,the Roman Empire, and theories of Polybius, Cicero and Seneca. It also examinesthese theories appeared in the Middle Age like those of Pope Gelasius, SaintAugustine, Tommaso d'Aquino and Dante. It also sheds light on modern theories inWestern political literature like those of absolute leadership in Niccolo deiMachiavelli, Voltaire, Thomas Hobbes, and those of limited leadership like those ofThomas More, Jean - Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu and Carle Marks.Chapter Two, which is in two sections, sheds light on theories of eadershipin the political thought of Imamah. The first section the theoretical background andthe chronological bases of the theory of te guardianship of the Islamic jurist. This isdone by examining its concept, types of guardianship, and its formulation in theexistence and absence of the twelfth Imam (pbuh). The second section deals with thetheories of the guardianship of umah, the guardianship of consultation, and theCguardianship of the Islamic jurist. It also examines the theory of gatering both the guardianship of consultation and the guardianship of the Islamic jurist.In its two section, the third chapter examines th theory of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist in detail by focusing on its preconditions, requirements, proofs, duties and the like.The first section examines a number of questions and debates related to the existence of more than one jurist, the possibility of implementing his guardianship outside his country, the difficulty of balancing between the divine will and people's will, the possibility of absolution in the jurist's guardianship and ruling, the mental proofs, sayings and evidence cited by Imams about his authority, and his basic characteristics. The important duties and limits of authority of the jurist are stated in the second section.The two sections of the fourth chapter deals with the opinions of earlier and recent Shiite jurists. In the first section, the opinions of Al - Kirki and Al - Naraqi. The second section, on the other hand, examines the opinion of recent Sitte scholars like Khomeini, Baqir Al - Sadr, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq Al - Sadr.The main findings and an examination of the validity of the research hypotheses are presented in the Conclusion.
