The Qur’anic Idea of Peace

Peace is a chief social value, which the Qur’an appreciates, along with social justice, and submission to God and worshiping Him. War is initially an implausible situation, which should be invoked only when necessary. Hence, the rule is peace, and war is the exception. Using Muhammad Hussein Tabatabai’s methodology in the interpretation of the Qur'an and his Qur’anic views regarding war and peace, this paper will attempt to show that the Qur’anic picture of war and peace is different from what is commonly supposed by non-Muslims. This paper will argue that since disagreement on the truth of religion is inevitable and perpetual; since imposition of religion is inconceivable; since the faithful have no responsibility for disbelievers’ choice except clearly delivering God’s Messages to them, and since the faithful are obliged to offer absolute respect to their disputants on the truth of religion, the reasonable way of managing disputes on religion is peaceful interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. It will be further argued that in addition to the moral principle of peace, there is another ground on the basis of which Muslims are advised to establish peaceful relations with non-Muslims; that is, through making peace contracts. In this way, the principle of peace is reinforced by the duty of respecting peace contracts

Imam Ali and Citizens' Rights

There is controversy as to whether or not the subjective sense of right (in the sense of a privilege claimable against an assignable person or persons) is found in the ancient time. It is definite, however, that in the 17th century Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694), and John Locke (1632-1704) made explicit attempts at conceptualising rights. The main claim of this paper is that Imam Ali (599-661), the most revered religious scholar among Shiite Muslims, made the first explicit attempt to conceptualise rights in the history of political thought. I would present Imam Ali’s political theory as a variant of ‘welfare limited guardianship’, which embodies several innovations made by him in the history of political ideas. The concept of welfare state, as well as the concept of publicly confirmed guardianship, registers Imam Ali as a definite original political thinker in history. Further, his concept of citizens’ rights that guarantees his view of limited government should be received as another innovation in the history of political thought. Unfortunately, however, the influence of his original political theory had to wait until Nā’īnī (1861-1936), the political theorist of the ‘Iranian Constitutionalist Revolution’ (1905-1911), developed Imam Ali’s political theory with a flavour of modernity

'The Need for a Concept of Justice, An Overview of Different Perspectives in Political Philosophy'

Describes various views on the need for a concept of justice to arrange social relationships in political philosophy