Velayat is a key concept within the second stage of the development of Shiite political thought after the 12th Imam Mahdi. This notion was raised again after the Islamic Republic was established and has since grown increasingly. Velayat is one of the four bases of the official state theory of appointed and absolute velayateh faqih and the other three views are based on direct divine legitimacy (theocracy). Velayat is a sort of relationship between the sovereign and the people. Velayat-Based State aims at expounding the various hypothetical and verified dimensions...

  Mohsen Kadivar was arrested on February 27, 1999 by the Tehran Cleric Court after several hours of interrogation and sent to a closed cell in Evin Prison, Tehran. He was once arrested 20 years before that date in 1979 during the Islamic uprising by the SAVAK (Shah’s secret police) on the streets of Shiraz. Only then, the Shiraz Judiciary released Kadivar on bail until his hearing but the Cleric Court of the Islamic Republic did not change the unconstitutional arrest warrant to bail. 47 days later, Kadivar’s hearing was…

   The Book of Reason is a collection of Mohsen Kadivar’s papers on philosophy and theology written and published in various periodicals between 1992 and 1995. The 24 papers comprising this book are classified into four sections: analytical papers on philosophy and theology (over half of the book), bibliographies on descriptive philosophy, brief descriptive papers on philosophy and theology, and interviews on philosophy and theology. The Book of Reason portrays the concerns of the writer over a period of four years that make up the first stage of his attempts...

 Does political thought in Islam or political thought and Shiite fiqh call for a unified theory on state or can there be various theories based on authentic criteria of fiqh? This book sets out to seek an answer to this question and aims to establish the fact that numerous theories have been proposed by Shiite faqihs – especially in recent times – concerning state, ruling, and administering a society. The diversity of these theories proves that there is no one single theory of state that can be considered as the...