Shari‘ati’s Quandary: An Ideal Islamic Government

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The intellectuals of the 1960s were intent on the theoretical dismantlement of hegemonic and repressive power relations, yet their major problem remained that of finding alternatives for realizing and putting into practice the slogan of “power to the people”. Shari‘ati’s endeavour in this domain takes many twists and turns, which in hindsight, reflects a sincere quest on his part to formulate a new method of transferring “power to the people”. Upon his return to Iran Shari‘ati grapples with the idea of giving a palpable and practical content to the utopian and therefore amorphous and opaque general notions of “power to the people” and crafting “new concepts”. This paper presents an analysis of the different models of good governance, which Shari’ati articulated between his return to Iran on 2 June 1964 and his departure to London on 16 May 1977.  

 

Shari‘ati’s reflections and findings on good governance during his thirteen year stay in Iran (1964-1977) demonstrates a non-linear process of postulating, questioning and then abandoning, retaining certain aspects and finally transcending. At first sight, his reflections on good governance may even seem circular. Shariati begins with one notion of bottom-up, elective and democratic process of selecting a leader and ends up almost where he starts, but in the process, he walks through the desert of an undemocratic process of leadership and governance and leaves it behind him. This paper seeks to demonstrate his wanderings, his reactions and the twists and turns in his view of good governance and presents six models based on Shari‘ati’s speeches as well as a few of his written works:  

 

Model One: Liberal Democracy as an image of showra (consultative democracy): Original Islam’s mode of Good Governance.  

Model Two: Ummat va Imamat: Appointment through bequest (vesayat) or guided/committed democracy as the necessary interlude to liberal democracy.  

Model three: Transitioning to a concrete model.  

Model Four: Indirect rule of the people or the popular election of the leader through a two-step process and abandoning the idea of people simply identifying the leader as in a guided/committed democracy.  

Model Five: Revolutionary Puritanism: Mode of governing the Islamic community (ummat) or leading the Islamic guerrilla organization (the superior ummat)?  

Model Six: Return to unqualified Democracy. 

The fact that Shari‘ati begins his study with a praise of liberal democracy, rooted in Islamic history and the notion of showra as an ideal method of governance, does not prevent him to criticize and modify his original idea and present his theory of Ummat va Imamat along with its modern day interpretation of committed/guided leadership. Shari‘ati concludes his search for good governance by returning to unconditional democracy, stated not in the language of political theory or philosophy, but in his favourite language, that of literature and poetry; his mother tongue. What makes Shari‘ati’s odyssey with good governance noteworthy is that he has no fixed and pre-conceived ideas of what good governance is, even though he seems impressed with the democratic political system and its accompanying political freedoms which he experienced in France.  

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