Islamic Government


Islamic Government, or Islamic Government: Jurist's Guardianship is a book by the Iranian cleric, Islamic jurist and revolutionary, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. First published in 1970, it is perhaps the most influential document written in modern times in support of theocratic rule.
The book argues that government should be run in accordance with traditional Islamic law, and for this to happen, a leading Islamic jurist must provide political "guardianship" over the people and nation. Following the Iranian Revolution, a modified form of this doctrine was incorporated into the 1979 Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran. Drafted by an assembly made up primarily of disciples of Khomeini, it stipulated that he would be the first faqih "guardian" or "Supreme Leader" of Iran.

History

From January 21 to February 8, 1970, while in exile in Iraq in the holy city of Najaf, Khomeini gave a series of 19 lectures on Islamic Government to a group of his students. Notes of the lectures were soon made into a book that appeared under three different titles:
  • The Islamic Government,
  • Authority of the Jurist, and
  • A Letter from Imam Musavi Kashef al-Qita.
The book was smuggled into Iran and widely distributed to supporters of Khomeini before the revolution.
Controversy surrounds how much of the book's success came from its persuasiveness, religiosity, etc., and how much from the success of the political movement of the author, who is generally considered to have been the "undisputed" leader of the Iranian revolution.
Many observers of the revolution maintain that while the book was distributed to Khomeini's core supporters in Iran, Khomeini and his aides were careful not to publicize the book or the idea of wilayat al-faqih to outsiders, knowing that groups crucial to the revolution's success—secular and Islamic modernist Iranians—were under the impression that the revolution was being fought for democracy, not theocracy. It was only when Khomeini's core supporters had consolidated their hold on power that wilayat al-faqih was made known to the general public and written into the country's new Islamic constitution.
The book has been translated into several languages including French, Arabic, Turkish and Urdu. The English translation that is most commonly found, considered to be the "only reliable" translation", and that is approved by the Iranian government, is that of Hamid Algar, an English-born convert to Islam, scholar of Iran and the Middle East, and supporter of Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution. It is available online,
and can be found in Algar's book Islam and Revolution, and in a stand-alone edition published in Iran by the "Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works", which was also published by Alhoda UK.
The one other English language edition of the book, also titled Islamic Government, is a stand-alone edition, translated by the U.S. government's Joint Publications Research Service. Algar considers this translation inferior to his own—being "crude" and "unreliable" and based on the Arabic translation rather than the original Persian—and claims its publication by Manor Books is "vulgar" and "sensational" in its attacks on the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Contents

Scope

Khomeini and his supporters before the revolution were from Iran, his movement was focused on Iran, and most of his criticisms of non-Islamic government refer to the imperial government of Iran that he sought to overthrow. However, Khomeini made it clear that Islamic government was to be universal, not limited to a single Islamic country or even to the Muslim world. According to Khomeini, this would not be that difficult because if Islamic government is established, "none of the governments now existing in the world would be able to resist it; they would all capitulate".

Importance of Islamic Government

Protecting religion

Without a leader to serve the people as "a vigilant trustee", enforcing law and order, Islam would fall victim "to obsolescence and decay", its "rites and institutions", "customs and ordinances" disappearing or mutating as "heretical innovators", "atheists and unbelievers" subtracted and added doctrines and practices.

Providing justice

Khomeini believed that the need for governance of the faqih has "little need of demonstration, and is obvious" to good Muslims. "Anyone" with "some general awareness" of the beliefs and ordinances of Islam would "unhesitatingly give his assent" to the principle of the governance of the faqih "as soon as he encounters it."
Nonetheless he provides several reasons why Islamic government is necessary:
  • to prevent encroachment by "oppressive ruling classes on the rights of the weak," and the plundering and corrupting of the people for the sake of "pleasure and material interest";
  • to prevent "innovation" in Islamic law and the legislating of "anti-Islamic laws by sham parliaments";
  • to preserve "the Islamic order" and keep all individuals on "the just path of Islam without any deviation";
  • to "reverse" the decline of Islam brought about by the absence of "executive power" in the hands of "just fuqaha... in the land inhabited by Muslims";
  • and to destroy "the influence of foreign powers in the Islamic lands".
The operation of Islamic government is superior to non-Islamic government in many ways. Khomeini sometimes compares it to un-Islamic governments in general throughout the Muslim world and more often contrasts it specifically with the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—though he never mentions the Shah by name.
Compared to the justice, impartiality, thrift, self-denial, and general virtue of the early leaders of Islam we know of from literature passed down over 1000 years, "Non-Islamic" government:
  • is mired in red tape thanks to "superfluous bureaucracies";
  • suffers from "reckless" spending, and "constant embezzlement", in the case of Iran, forcing it to seek foreign aid or loans from abroad, and in so doing, "bow in submission" before America and Britain;
  • has excessively harsh punishments ;
  • creates an "unjust economic order" which divides the people "into two groups: oppressors and oppressed";
  • does not "truly belong to the people", though it may be made up of elected representatives.
While some might think the complexity of the modern world would move the Muslims of 1970 to learn from countries that have modernized ahead of them, and even borrow laws from them, this is not only un-Islamic but also entirely unnecessary. The laws of God, cover "all human affairs... There is not a single topic in human life for which Islam has not provided instruction and established a norm." As a result, Islamic government will be much easier to establish than some might think.
"The entire system of government and administration, together with necessary laws, lies ready for you. If the administration of the country calls for taxes, Islam has made the necessary provision; and if laws are needed, Islam has established them all.... Everything is ready and waiting."

For this reason, Khomeini declines "to go into details" on such things as "how the penal provisions of the law are to be implemented".

Required by Islam

In addition to the reasons above on why the guardianship of the jurist is superior to secular non-Islamic government, Khomeini also gives much space to doctrinal reasons that establish proof that the rule of jurists is required by Islam.
No sacred texts of Shia Islam include a straightforward statement that the Muslim community should be ruled over by Islamic jurists or Islamic scholars. Traditionally, Shia Islam follows a pivotal Shi'i hadith where Muhammad passed down his power to command Muslims to his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first of twelve descendants of Ali who are the"Imams" Twelve Shi'i Islam. This line of descendants were the legitimate rulers of Islam, though never in a position to actually rule, and the line stopped with the occultation of the last Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, in 939 CE. While waiting for the reappearance of that Twelfth Imam, Shia jurists have tended to stick to one of three approaches to the state: cooperating with it, trying to influence policies by becoming active in politics, or most commonly, remaining aloof from it.
In contrast, Khomeini insists there are "numerous traditions that indicate the scholars of Islam are to exercise rule during the Occultation", and tries to prove this by explicating several Quranic verses and hadith of the Shi'a Imams. The first proof he offers is an analysis of a saying attributed to the first Imam, 'Ali, who in addressing a well-connected judge he considered corrupt, said:
'The seat you are occupying is filled by someone who is a prophet, the legatee of a prophet, or else a sinful wretch.'

While this might sound like ʿAli is simply remonstrating against the judge who had exceeded his authority and sinned, Khomeini reasons that hadith's use of the term judge must refer to a trained jurist, as the "function of a judge belongs to just fuqaha " ', and since trained jurists are neither sinful wretches nor prophets, "we deduce from the tradition quoted above that the fuqaha are the legatees"; and since legatees of Muhammad, such as Imams, have the same power to command and rule Muslims as Muhammad did, it is therefore demonstrated that the saying, `The seat you are occupying is filled by someone who is a prophet, the legatee of a prophet, or else a sinful wretch,` proves that Islamic jurists are the rightful rulers of Muslims and others.
Other examples the follow include:
  • "Obey those among you who have authority"
.
  • Combining two hadith of Ali:
  • *"those who transmit my statements and my traditions and teach them to the people" are my successors;
  • *"all believers" should obey my successors",
  • The Seventh Imam had praised religious judges as "the fortress of Islam", which indicates not just that the fuqaha generally serve to strengthen the religion, but must mean that they are entrusted with preserving Islam, which means they have an active social role,.
  • The twelfth Imam had preached that future generations should obey those who knew his teachings, since those people were his representatives among the people in the same way as he was God's representative among believers. This must mean that the ulama are not only "the point of reference" for points of Islamic law but also for "contemporary social problems", according to Khomeini.
  • The Sixth Imam said: "The ulama are the heirs of the prophets. The prophets did not leave a single dinar or dirham for an inheritance. Rather they left knowledge as an inheritance and whosoever takes from it, has taken an abundant share". Khomeini interprets this to mean that the ulama have not only inherited knowledge from the prophets, but also "the Prophets' authority" to rule.
  • God had created sharia to guide the Islamic community, the state to implement sharia, and faqih to understand and implement sharia.
Not only is the rule of Islamic jurists and obedience toward them an obligation of Islam, it is as important a religious obligation as any a Muslim has. Obedience to holders of authority like Islamic jurists "is actually an expression of obedience to God." Preserving Islam "is more necessary even than prayer and fasting" and without Islamic government, Islam cannot be preserved.
It is also the duty of Muslims to "destroy... all traces" of any other sort of government other than true Islamic governance, because these are "systems of unbelief".