The evolution of Iranian Islamism from the revolution through the contemporary reformers.

• Author: Usman, Jeffrey

ABSTRACT

This Note explores the evolution and maturation of Iranian Islamism from the revolutionary elites through the contemporary reformers of the 21st century. The Author examines the conflicting ideological influences that are shaping the Islamist movement in Iran. This Note begins by presenting the framework of the fundamental contradictions that underlie Iranian Islamist ideology. The analysis of the Iranian Constitution is divided into an exploration of the institutional role of the clerical elites in the form of the faqih and the Council of Guardians, the constitutionally defined role of women, the democratic elements in the Iranian Constitution, and Marxism and environmentalism in the Constitution. The Note then addresses the maturation of the Iranian Islamist movement including attempts to reinvigorate the power of the conservatives beyond Khomeini, the election to Khatami, the women's rights movement, the philosophy of democratic Islamism, and the clerical backlash against the reform movement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE ISLAMIST REVOLUTION AND RULE IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN A. The Constitution of Islamic Republic 1. Velayat-e Faqih (Rule by the Jurist) or the Foqaha and the Council of Guardians 2. The Islamically-Defined Status and Role of Women in the Iranian Constitution 3. Democratic Elements in the Iranian Constitution 4. Marxist Economic Thought and Environmentalism in the Iranian Constitution B. Contemporary Iran 1. Attempts to Reinvigorate the Power of the Conservatives Beyond Khomeini 2. The Election of Khatami 3. The Women's Rights Movement 4. The Philosophy of Democratic Islamism 5. Clerical Backlash III. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

This Note addresses the legal philosophy of the Islamist movement in Iran. The movement is traced from its rise to power to contemporary fissures in the system, that divide reformers from many clerical elites. One goal of this Note is to determine what internal legal reforms the Islamist movement aims to achieve. This Note centrally argues that Iranian Islamism is trapped within a series of legal paradoxes resulting from the clashing, and not always congealing, elements of democratic values, Platonistic philosophy, and a variety of modernist intellectual movements including environmentalism and Marxist economics, that are all read within the framework of the Islamist interpretation of Islam itself. The discussion explores two possible resolutions of this contradiction. One possibility is that the contradiction will be resolved extremely slowly through unevenly paced progress and struggle toward democratic reform within the context of, and perhaps limited to, the internal law of Iran. (1) A second, starker possibility is the continued tyrannical subjugation of democratic elements of the Islamist movement by absolutist clerical rule.

This Note also strives to answer the question of whether an Islamist State can exist as a democratic state. Iran stands as an example of what Islamist revolutionaries seek to achieve in enacting and enforcing their conception of Islamic law, sharia. The course of Iranian political development over the past two decades provides insight into the impact of Islamist rule on a society and the changing nature of the movement itself. The Revolution that swept the Pahlavi dynasty out of power and Khomeini into power stands within the minds of its architects as both an example for Islamist reform, and a platform for spreading further Islamist reform and revolution in the Muslim world. Its leaders believe that their revolution is not to be confined to Iran. Quite to the contrary, they believe that it will be exported and imported wherever the umma, or religious community of Islam, exists. More than 20 years after the 1979 Revolution, there are two extremely plausible interpretations of the course of the Islamist movement. Perhaps democracy, an element external or internal to Islam, was originally planted in the foundations of Islamism and is emerging, although extremely slowly, as a far more potent element of the Iranian revolution than it had been. Alternatively, corresponding with Samuel Huntington's paradigm of the Clash of Civilizations, democracy cannot survive in an Islamist state. Under this latter interpretation, democracy's appearance on the Iranian political stage is merely transitory, a fleeting moment of hope.

2. THE ISLAMIST REVOLUTION AND RULE IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

   "The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is full of contradictions which, viewed in theft totality, reflect the extraordinary range of political forces involved in the Iranian revolution and the particular constellation of power that existed...." (2) One of the fundamental contradictions of the Iranian Constitution is that the document, which is supposed to serve as the basis for the ideal and pure Islamic State, "incorporates many non-Islamic and non-legalist elements." (3) This would not be a contradiction, but for the added complication that Islamist, (4) Islamics (5) legalists (6) "claim that a state set up on the basis of Shi'i law and ruled by Islamic jurists (foqaha) is capable of offering solutions to all problems not only in Iran, but throughout the world" utilizing interpretations of religious texts as the exclusive model for governance. (7) A "second ... contradiction [is] between [the Iranian Constitution's] democratic and anti-democratic elements, arising chiefly from conflict between two notions of sovereignty embodied in the document: the sovereignty of the people on the one hand and of the Islamic jurists on the other, a sovereignty that the jurists exercise as God's deputies." (8) It is basically undisputed, however, that the structure of the Islamic Republic, as framed by the Constitution consisting of both Islamic and Republican elements, was designed to be dominated by the religious jurists acting in accordance with the sharia, or Islamic law, rather than conforming with the principles of popular sovereignty. (9)

   Asghar Schirazi, a scholar of the Iranian Constitution, postulated the existence of a third contradiction between "those Islamic legalist elements in the constitution which support a hierarchy and its Islamic anti-hierocratic elements." (10) Nevertheless, Schirazi argued that the anti-hierocratic elements "are based on a conception of Islam which has assimilated significantly greater democratic and secular attitudes, [thus] this contradiction can be seen as corresponding for the most part to the contradiction between the legalist [(more traditional Islamic elements)] and the democratic, secular elements." (11) Thus, he contends that the fundamental tension in the Iranian Constitution is the internal elements opposing the external elements. (12) Stated differently, the basic friction is between promulgating law relying exclusively on Islam as defined by the Islamists, and promulgating law that incorporates elements from external sources of law--mainly democratic values and modernist ideologies such as Marxist economic theory and environmentalism--that are frequently contradictory with traditional Islamic law. The external secular and democratic elements and the Islamic legalist components of the Iranian Constitution "have not been adapted to one another in a harmonious way, but appear in one and the same text as elements that contradict and exclude one another." (13) As an illustration, "[t]he sovereignty of the Islamic jurists negates the sovereignty of the people, the Islamic community is set over against the Iranian nation, Islamic regulations and principles limit the rights of the people, the Guardian Council deprives parliament of power, the leader suppresses the president, [and] the concept of velayat-e faqih reduces the idea of a republic to absurdity." (14)

   1. The Constitution of Islamic Republic

      The Iranian Constitution contains numerous and pervasive allusions throughout its preamble and 175 articles to various Islamic elements, which possess several prominent general characteristics. (15) First, the Islamic elements establish that "the state and the revolution leading to the creation of that state are Islamic." (16) Second, "[t]hey define the tasks and the goals of the state in accordance with its Islamic character." (17) Third, "[t]hey bind legislation to the sharia." (18) Fourth, "[t]hey ensure that positions of leadership will be reserved to Islamic jurists." (19) Fifth, "[t]hey place Islamically defined restrictions on the democratic rights of individuals, of the nation and of ethnic groups." (20) Sixth, "[t]hey set up institutions whose task it is to ensure the Islamic character of the State." (21) These general characteristics are all directed toward one goal: forming an ideal Islamic Republic. (22)

      The Constitution of Iran explicitly provides that the "form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic." (23) The Constitution defines an "Islamic Republic [as] a system of government based on belief in":

      1. the one God (as stated in the Islamic creed "There is no god but God"), His exclusive possession of sovereignty and the right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to his commands; b. divine revelation and its fundamental role in the expounding of laws; c. the return to God in the hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in man's ascending progress toward God; d. the justice of God in creation and legislation; e. continuous leadership and guidance, and its fundamental role in assuring the continuity of the revolution of Islam; f. the exalted dignity and value of man, and his freedom, joined to responsibilities, before God; which secures equity, justice, political, economic, social and cultural independence, and national solidarity, by recourse to:

      1. continuous ijtihad (24) of the fuqaha possessing the necessary qualifications, exercised on the basis of the Book of God and the Sunna of the Masumin, upon all of whom be peace; b. recourse to arts...