State Studies

The Formulation of the Issue of the State in the Political Kalam of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Ali Aqajani

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Social Sciences Research Institute, Research Institute of Hawzah and University, Qom, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22054/tssq.2026.88325.1721
Abstract
Introduction
The question of the state has long been one of the most fundamental and complex issues in political thought. What is the state? From where does its legitimacy derive? What are its ends and functions? How is its relationship with religion, ethics, reason, and society defined? These questions have received different answers across intellectual traditions. In modern Western political thought, the state is typically defined as a contractual, secular institution arising from the will of free individuals—an institution whose task is to regulate social relations, guarantee individual rights, and maintain public order. In the liberal tradition, the state is the guardian of natural rights, and its legitimacy stems from the social contract. In the Hobbesian tradition, the state is the Leviathan that establishes order through fear and coercion. In the republican tradition, the state is the institution for realizing the common good and civic virtue. In contrast, in the Islamic tradition, and especially in Shi ‘i thought, the state is intimately linked to the concepts of prophethood, Imamate, wilaya, and human vicegerency (khilafa). It is not merely an instrument of power but the manifestation of divine order in the social sphere.
Political theology (kalam siyasi), as an interdisciplinary field emerging from the interaction of traditional and modern theology, contemporary political developments, and political science, has acquired a special place in contemporary Islamic thought. This field, particularly in its branch concerned with the question of the state and “statehood”—which addresses doctrinal and faith-based teachings related to the state, government, political legitimacy, power structures, and the relations between the state, society, and citizens—seeks to redefine the relationship between religion and politics in the context of the challenges of modernity, secularism, and democracy. The question of the state is central because every political theory must ultimately answer how a state becomes legitimate, effective, and legitimized, and what its relationship is with religion and the people.
Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, as one of the most prominent contemporary Shi ‘i thinkers, offers a coherent theory of the Islamic state and statehood through an integrative approach combining Transcendent Theosophy (hikmat muta‘aliya), comprehensive jurisprudence, revelation-centered rationality, and Qur’anic exegesis. In his intellectual system, the state is not merely an executive institution but an epistemic, ethical, and civilizational structure that operates in continuity with divine lordship (rububiyya), human vicegerency, and Qur’anic guidance. Its mission is education, guidance, and the realization of human dignity. For him, the question of the state transcends the level of administration and control and rises to the level of guidance and civilization-building. Javadi Amoli’s political thought is significant in multiple respects: the relative comprehensiveness of his understanding of religion, the diversity of his works across various dimensions of political thought, his active presence in both theoretical and practical politics, the vitality of his long scholarly life, and his mastery of the greater jurisprudence (fiqh akbar), of which political-theological discussions form an important part.
Research Aim
The main aim of this research is to examine and reconstruct the question of the state in the political theology of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli by employing Quentin Skinner’s intentionalist hermeneutics. The central research question is: How is the question of the state conceived in Ayatollah Javadi Amoli’s thought, and how can his intentions and purposes be reconstructed through Skinner’s intentionalist hermeneutics? The research hypothesis states that the political theology of the state in Javadi Amoli’s view is oriented toward contemporary issues and, with relative comprehensiveness and internal coherence based on the synthesis of traditional and modern theology, reconstructs existing norms. In this reconstruction, wilayat al-faqih is presented as the extension of epistemic-civilizational Imamate; legitimacy is divine with popular acceptance; democracy is monotheistic and guided; secularism is the negation of legislative lordship; and international relations are grounded in justice and the monotheistic primordial nature (fitra). Compared with rival systems (Western and traditional), this approach seeks to present the Islamic state as an ethical, rational, and civilization-building institution.
Subsidiary aims include identifying the objective and subjective contexts that shaped Javadi Amoli’s view of the state; examining the conventional norms in the political theology of the state (Islam and state legitimacy, Islam and democracy, Islam and secularism, and Islam and international relations); and analyzing Javadi Amoli’s novel interventions and redefinitions of these norms.
Research Method
This research employs Quentin Skinner’s intentionalist hermeneutics. Skinner emphasizes the discovery of the author’s intention through the examination of four key elements: subjective contexts (presuppositions, doctrinal foundations, and intellectual orientations), objective contexts (social and political developments), conventional political-theological norms, and the thinker’s interventions in those norms. Skinner’s method occupies a moderate position between text-centered and context-centered approaches and regards an accurate understanding of the author as requiring the simultaneous analysis of various elements such as life environment, political space, language, intellectual background, and written works.
Accordingly, the study first examines the objective contexts of Javadi Amoli’s life and political engagements (the cultural environment of Amol, the experiences of Tehran and Qom, and political developments across four periods: pre-revolution, post-revolution, system consolidation, and thereafter). It then analyzes the subjective contexts, including Transcendent Theosophy, revelation-centered rationality, comprehensive jurisprudence, and Qur’an-to-Qur’an exegesis. Next, the conventional norms in the Islamic and Shi‘i traditions regarding the state are extracted. Finally, Javadi Amoli’s interventions and redefinitions in relation to the modern Western state, the Sunni Islamic state, and the traditional Shi‘i state are examined.
Report of Research Findings
The findings show that in Javadi Amoli’s intellectual system, the Islamic state is not merely an executive institution but an epistemic, ethical, and civilizational structure formed in continuity with divine lordship, human vicegerency, and Qur’anic guidance. Its mission is not only administration but education, guidance, and the realization of human dignity. The state provides the ground for the realization of humanity’s divine vicegerency on earth and must prepare the conditions for the growth of reason, ethics, and human dignity. Society without a regulating institution tends toward injustice and corruption, and the Islamic state must be the manifestation of divine justice.
Functionally, Javadi Amoli emphasizes the downsizing of the state sector and the transfer of executive affairs to the people, assigning the state the primary roles of supervision, regulation, and guidance. He explicitly states that the state sector should be reduced, tasks should be entrusted to the people, and the state should assume the responsibility of supervision. In his thought, the state more closely resembles a gardener and guiding educator than an executive laborer or a mere regulator.
The key to understanding the scope of the state’s function in Javadi Amoli’s thought is the distinction between “amr Allah” (the domain of divine command) and “amr al-nas” (the domain of people’s affairs). In the domain of amr Allah (fixed legal rulings), the people have no role in legislation, and the state is obliged to implement these rulings. In the domain of amr al-nas (customary affairs, permissible matters, non-inferred subjects, and the region of discretion—mantiqat al-faragh), popular participation and intervention are complete, and the people’s opinion is valid. The region of discretion provides a legitimate space for social reason and popular participation in legislation and decision-making.
The legitimacy of the state is, in the ontological sense (maqam al-thubut), divine and based on wilayat al-faqih (deputyship of the Infallible Imam). However, in the sense of actualization and continuity (maqam al-ithbat), it requires popular acceptance and support. Without popular backing, a religious government can neither be established nor sustained. The people are partners in establishing justice (qist), and their supervision through the duty of enjoining good and forbidding evil is obligatory; even the Guardian Jurist is not exempt from this supervisory circle. The people’s bay‘a (pledge of allegiance) with the legitimate wali reveals social acceptance; it does not create legitimacy.
Javadi Amoli regards wilayat al-faqih as the extension of epistemic and civilizational Imamate and interprets absolute guardianship as guardianship within the framework of divine rulings, not as unlimited and arbitrary domination. Religious democracy in this system is monotheistic and guided, resulting from the genuine fusion of Qur’anic teachings with revelation-centered rationality. Unlike secular democracy, which rests solely on the will of the majority, religious democracy is organized on the basis of monotheism, justice, and rationality.
Secularism is critiqued in his works as the denial of legislative lordship and the removal of religion from the public sphere. Javadi Amoli considers it a form of planning for human life without awareness of the two sides of eternity (pre-eternity and post-eternity). In contrast, he presents a model of religious government with active popular participation in which religion is not only the source of legitimacy but also the method of administering society.
In the sphere of international relations, Javadi Amoli regards the international language of Islam as the monotheistic primordial nature (fitra). Relations are regulated on the basis of justice, rejection of domination, fulfillment of covenants, and invitation to the good. Defensive war is obligatory, and initiatory war is for removing obstacles to guidance. The state is the representative of divine ethics and the bearer of the message of monotheism.
Conclusion
In sum, Javadi Amoli’s political theology is a theoretical effort to reconstruct the fundamental concepts of the state in the light of religious rationality, Islamic philosophy, and Qur’anic guidance. While remaining faithful to the Shi ‘i tradition, this model transforms the state into an ethical, epistemic, and civilizational institution whose mission is the education of the human being, the realization of justice, and active presence in the global arena. In his thought, the state rises from the level of domination and control to the level of guidance and education, playing the role of gardener and guiding educator. Divine legitimacy is combined with popular acceptance; democracy acquires meaning within the framework of monotheism and justice; and secularism is rejected as the negation of legislative lordship. This theory redefines the political language of Islam for global dialogue and offers a human-centered alternative to the modern power-centered order. The research findings demonstrate that through his novel interventions in conventional norms, Javadi Amoli has succeeded in presenting a coherent, rational, and civilization-building model of the Islamic state that is both faithful to tradition and responsive to contemporary challenges.

Keywords

Political theology
Statehood
Ayatollah Javadi Ameli
Skinner's hermeneutics
Subjective and objective contexts
Conventional norms
Intellectual dispositions
Subjects
The Holy Qur’an.
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