The People and the Government in the Contemporary Shiite Political Jurisprudence (Constitutional Period)

Abstract

The Shiite political jurisprudence in the Constitutional Period was much bold. Ākhūnd Khurāsānī and his pupils were among the most prominent jurists – in the Constitutional period – who had many innovations in the constitutionalist thought. One of the great achievements of these jurists in the political arena is the relationship between people and the government. These jurists had, in their temporal conditions as the representatives of the great Shiite tradition, an important role in modernism of the Iranians. They did not stop in the past doctrines; rather, they used the political and social ordinances of the Shiite jurisprudence; and using the capacities of legal reasoning according to the conditions of time, place and demands of the time, they opened a new chapter in the Iranian and Islamic thoughts. Before the Constitutional period, people had mainly no right in the government, but there appeared a change in the discussions. The great Shiite scholars could highlight the people's status in the government by scrutiny and using the Islamic doctrines. Ākhūnd Khurāsānī and his co-thinkers, Mīrzā Nāʾīnī and Sheikh Ismāʿīl Maḥallātī, used new criteria in classification of governments, and opened way for people's participation.

Keywords

• ākhūn khurāsānī
• nāʾīnī
• maḥallātī
• classification of governments
• constitutionalism