In an interview with a reporter of ISCO’s Rahaward Electronic Newsletter, Dr. Lakzaei answering a question on the need to deal with the jurisprudence of foreign policies and international relations, said: “Given that foreign policy and international relations include a vast domain dealing with such complicated issues as international organizations with their varieties and specific domains, local organizations, globalization, rules and principles of international relations, forms of relations between countries, new colonialism and hegemony, there must be persons specialized in Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic sciences, foreign policy and international relations to work on these various branches, making each one as discipline in education centers”.
“More than 60 Islamic countries are members of Organization of Islamic Conference. How much do their foreign policies comply with Islamic principles? How much Muslim countries do follow Islamic standards in their foreign policies? For the time being there is no place to exactly and technically discuss these issues”, he stated.
“No one has studied from the perspective of jurisprudence about the standards and principles that have to rule the membership of Islamic countries to International organizations. The consequences we draw from our discussions on political jurisprudence and international policies can affect Muslim behaviors in the realm of political affairs. There is also the problem of occupation of countries like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Lebanon. We have just looked at these issues from a general perspective. Islamic seminaries have also sufficed to having such a general understanding of the matter. This is while we need to study these issues in a detailed manner”, Dr. Lakzaei mentioned.
“What contribution can jurisprudence make concerning the occupation of countries? What matters, is that we want to know what the duty of Muslims is, on the bases of jurisprudence, concerning the occupation of an Islamic country. Should Muslims fight against occupiers or tolerate them? There is no clear juristic ruling in this regard. Everybody judges about such things on the bases of common sense. Similarly there is no clear stance concerning terrorism and suicide attacks. We Muslims are the victims of terrorism and war, but academically we do not have anything to offer in this connection. There is no research or education center that specifically works on war and peace”, director of Center for Political Thoughts and Sciences said.
“One of the issues in traditional jurisprudence is Jihad. In recent years, we had many wars in Islamic countries. There have been emerged new problems like weapons of mass killing, nuclear weapons, missiles and sanctions. We need to study these issues from the perspective of jurisprudence and know what is the stance of jurisprudence in regard with these issues”, Dr. Lakzaei said.
“There is no enough facility in the Center for Political Thoughts and Sciences to start such disciplines. To start such disciplines needs physical facilities and human resources. We must have enough scholars and sufficient physical facilities in order to be able to begin such disciplines. For the time being, we have problems in these two domains particularly in the domain of physical facilities.
Moreover no one supports such ideas. Despite all problems, we suggested related centers establish the discipline of jurisprudence of foreign policy, international relations and security”, he related.
The main responsibility of jurisprudence of security is to present the security ideas of Islam.
In response to a question on the main responsibility of jurisprudence of security, he stressed: “Jurisprudence of security deals with issues such as presenting security ideas of Islam. Presently Western security schools of thought prevail. In our country, the Copenhagen’s security school of thought is very rampant. This theory was presented and elucidated in Copenhagen by Barry Buzan and that is the reason why it called Copenhagen’s security school of thought. Other security theories such as those of realism, neo-realism, idealism and neo-idealism are also altogether Western in nature”, he maintained.
“We need to activate the discipline of Islamic security. Thus we must establish Islamic security school of thought presenting Islamic theory of security. We can set the presentation of Islamic theory of foreign policy as our goal in jurisprudence of foreign policy”, he pointed out.
“We must begin political study of Quranic exegesis in future. However we are also in the early stages of establishing politico-empirical tendencies. We also need to carry out studies on political sociology, political economics, political geography and particularly issues concerning the world of Islam. Islamic seminaries and their affiliated centers are highly expected to run such disciplines so as to be constantly aware of the current situation of the world of Islam. Unless we know very well about the problems of the world of Islam we cannot correctly solve these problems”, he stated.
Saying that education and research discipline have to be activated in seminaries, he mentioned: “Firstly we must begin education and research disciplines in seminaries. The duty of a researcher is to identify, scrutinize and solve a problem through presenting a desired alternative. However to act on such solutions is the duty of religious and political leaders, as the authority and facility lie with them. A researcher does not do any thing more than research, but the thing is that we have not made any systematic study of the world of Islam as a scientific tendency not to speak of a scientific discipline”, he elucidated.
The establishment of the discipline of regional studies in seminaries helps us understand better about the problems of the world of Islam.
Answering a question on establishing major disciplines especially the discipline of regional studies in seminaries and universities, he pointed out: “What is presented as regional studies at universities is the closest thing to studies about the world of Islam. While establishing a discipline on the studies pertaining to the world of Islam, we can make use of such regional studies. If we have the discipline of regional studies at seminaries, we can better know about the problems of the world of Islam. Since Islam is a universal religion and its mission is a universal mission, we as Muslims are expected to know about the problems of people of different parts of the world so as to be able to present new alternatives to better their lives (bodily and spiritually), spread peace and fight against poverty, corruption, war and insecurity”.
“Islamic seminaries as the torch-bearers of Islam are expected to identify the problems of the world and present solutions for them”, this professor of political sciences reiterated.
“Answering a question on the subject matter of political sciences, he said: “After the victory of Islamic Revolution, it was felt as necessary to pay attention to some sciences given their role in governing a society and establishing a government. However it was not considered as necessary to bring about long-term changes in education and research programs of seminaries. If seminary education programs were revised, one scientific discipline that would receive most attention as a candidate was political sciences with emphasis on Islamic attitudes in a place like Qom being the center of Islamic learning”, he further said.
“However the principle approach is the Islamic one at Islamic seminaries and indigenous approach has its own significance. The indigenous approach does not mean national approach; it is an approach that aims at solving problems related to Muslims of any countries including Iran. It is on the bases of such grounds that attention has been paid to political science and centers have been founded to deal with political works”, he maintained.
“According to this approach, Islamic political science is defined as systematic, purposeful, rational and coherent components that guide a society towards a strategic road that leads to a religiously defined goal. God has related the goal of creation in the holy Qura’an, which is the ground of living in Islamic worldview. Since the duty of an Islamic government is to prepare the ground for worshiping God, Islamic political science works towards such an orientation. Given our epistemic sources, we have different propositions in Islamic political science”, he pointed out.
“Islamic political science is obtained from different sources including experience, revelation, intellect and intuition. There are different political norms called Islamic political thought. These norms are divided into many sub-branches. There is for example juristic political thought that gets divided into Shiite and Sunnite tendencies. Political philosophical tendencies are in turn divided into Peripatetic political philosophy, illuminationist political philosophy and transcendental political philosophy. Theological political thought is also divided into Shiite, Mu’atazilite, Ash’arite, Murji’aite, Kharijite, Zaidite etc. political theologies”, he explained.
“One can also name mystical political thought that focuses on a perfect man as its subject matter. What Attar, Mulawi or Ibn Arabi has done in his respective works is the example of normative works carried out by these mystics. However another part of their works deals with relating the realities, having nothing to do with norms or at least their normative aspects are not eye catching. This last one is a politico experimental tendency. Discussions related to political sociology, political geography, political economics and the likes are such examples”, he added.
Islamic seminaries have mainly focused on producing a political science with normative tendencies especially after the victory of Islamic Revolution.
“In experimental fields, we can make use of theories and attitudes put forth by other scholars. If experimentally discovered theories are not coherently put in a unified, comprehensive and purposeful whole, they will not be perfect. If we do not work on presenting new theories it will cause us to borrow theories along with experimental discussions. It does not have any antecedent to have a political science without normative attitudes, just as it is not plausible to find statesmanship without a normative attitude. Liberalism is a school of thought defining certain values just as Marxism is a school of thought defining certain values and norms. Islam also introduces certain values and norms. Given our especial epistemic sources, we have made certain advancement in certain area while having no intrusion in certain other areas”, he noted.
In response to a question on whether the published works covered all expected areas in the field of politics, he said: “Prior to answering this question, we must clear our stance regarding the definition of sciences. If we define science with positivist tendencies science will be reduced to something merely obtained through experiments. As a result, theoretical discussions will not fall within the realm of science. However we do not accept a positivist definition of science nor do many other scholars of political science agree with this definition. Today the positivist approach is an outdated approach.
When we talk of science we mean a set of systematic, methodic and purposeful data that can be evaluated and retained by different human minds. These data can be obtained both from experimental as well as non-experimental sources. The latter includes revelation, intellect and intuition. It is based on this definition that Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy (ISCA) has been able to prove that some of these scholarly discussions enjoy the level of a discipline, given the works of the relevant faculty members. For the first time, we were able to convince the ministry of sciences, researches and technology to ratify political science as a discipline. We were also able to introduce a group of researchers with determined faculty members for this newly established discipline. These researchers have thus far done many research works of which many have been published. We have also been able to approve of intellectual political discussions as political philosophy. ISCA was first in doing such things. In some educational centers, political jurisprudence and political philosophy have emerged as political tendencies. The discipline of Islamic political thought has gone active countrywide for MA levels. The main sources used by these disciplines are produced by ISCA”.
“Relying on those who cooperate with seminaries and the section of political science, some educational fields operate at al-Mustafa University. Political jurisprudence and political philosophy are now active at al-Mustafa University for foreign students. However this political discipline has not become operative for Iranian seminary students”, he stated.
In response to a question on the necessity of passing these disciplines from seminaries to universities, he said: “Presently the discipline of Islamic political thought is operative countrywide. However we suggest this discipline get divided into many tendencies including political jurisprudence, political philosophy, political theology and even political exegesis of the holy Quran”.
Center for political thoughts and sciences is a successful example of the unification and cooperation of universities and seminaries.
Answering a question on how much ISCA had made use of the university potentials, he said: “More than 95 percent of our researchers hold Kharij seminary degrees and at least university MA degrees in one or another of the disciplines related to ISCA activities. Thus one can name ISCA as a successful example of convergence and cooperation of seminaries and universities. Since we need both seminary and university expertise and we need specifically to get to know about newly raised issues, therefore it is necessary to include both seminary as well as university elements to researchers and faculty members. So far, the Center for political thoughts and sciences has accomplished more than 70 projects some of which are global. For example, transcendental politics, which was discussed by the academy, has a universal potential. Based on epistemic sources, one can judge for oneself as to which works are universal and which are not. For example, if a research is based on experience like political sociology, it can be presented to the world. Similarly if a discussion is based on intellectual and philosophical grounds, it can also be passed to the world. However if a research is based on revelation and tradition, like political jurisprudence, it addresses firstly the Muslims. That is why when we work in the realm of political jurisprudence we take into account the world of Islam, whether Shiite or Sunnites. While when we ponder upon political philosophy or political sciences with empiricist tendencies we address the whole world”.
“One such universal discussion, the achievements of which have thus far been published in many scholarly journals and some in the form of books, was that held with the presence of Ayatollah Jawadi Amuli. It was of course a universal production. We talked about this idea with some foreigners and they welcomed the idea”, he clarified.
If we want to stand on our own feet and rely on our own school of thought, we do not have any option other than establishing a political science on experimental, intellectual, philosophical and normative fields.
“We must work beyond a specific geography or epistemology, establishing relation with world thinkers and using Islamic philosophy’s potentials to the best possible extent. If we want to stand on our own feet in terms of political sciences and rely on our own school of thought, we do not have any option other than establishing a political science on experimental, intellectual, philosophical and normative fields. We must enter into dialogue with others taking their findings into consideration. Based on a scientific interaction, we should reach newer findings”, he noted.
In future, it will be necessary to establish new disciplines in political science preventing further expansion of the discipline of political jurisprudence.
Saying that some new disciplines have to be established, he pointed out: “The establishment of a scientific discipline is due to the needs that arise with passage of time. There are many scientific tendencies in political jurisprudence. In future, these tendencies must get separated from jurisprudence, each one forming a new discipline. There are both legal and political tendencies in political jurisprudence. If we want to do things on expertise bases, we must turn in future these tendencies into a full discipline”.
Religious leaders of Muslim countries must pay attention to Islamic globalization.
Answering a question on Islamic globalization, he mentioned: “Islamic mission is a universal mission. Ever since the Holy Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) was sent, the idea was that he was a universal prophet. There is no doubt that Islam has something to do with globalization, as the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is the final prophet and his religion the final religion. Thus Islam is a universal religion”.
“If we believe that Islam is a universal religion (which is in fact so), Muslim leaders must take this point into consideration, making efforts to prepare the ground for its implications. After the victory of Islamic revolution in Iran, long steps have been taken towards this direction. Parallel to taking political and religious measures in this regard, scientific measures have to be taken as well. In modern era, there are specific scientific solutions for specific problems. If we can establish disciplines that may help us introduce Islam universally, it will be very useful and we must follow such a path”, he added.
“As a person who works on political science in addition to seminary studies, I believe that if such disciplines become operative firstly in research areas and then in education fields they will definitely help us do our duty and materialize Islamic teachings world-wide”, he pinpointed.
Answering a question on why the present world had a deficient knowledge of Islam despite the extensive potentials of the latter, he said: “Since we have not introduced Islam fully therefore the world has a deficient knowledge of Islam. In the beginning of his discussion on valayat e faqih, Imam Khomeini has spoken in detail on why the world of Islam is suffering from a sorry plight. He focuses on colonialism, Zionism and deficient introduction of Islam as the main causes of this unwanted situation. Imam Khomein’s making this point has something to do with our present discussion on political issues. Quran contains all kinds of issues including social, political, economic, legal etc. but an examination of the current state of affairs of Muslim countries shows that issues related to individuals dominate everything else. It implies a deficient understanding of Islam for which we have to blame ourselves”, Dr. Lakzaei noted.
“In our turn, we must leave no stone unturned to introduce all aspects of Islam. Islam is a system, complete school of thought and a full package of rules for guiding mankind. If there has to be a systematic outlook and if in such a situation one suffices to paying attention to a specific part neglecting the rest, the system will not work. If a system is going to properly work, the whole parts of it must properly function. Islam contains individual, social, educational, legal and economic rulings. If we want to see the results of acting on Islam (just as God has promised) we must believe in Islamic rulings and put them altogether into practice”, he maintained.
Source: ISCA (Office of Scientific and International Cooperation