Pages: 14-25

Abstract

 Shiites’ political theory has undergone various changes during the course of its history in the period of immaculate Imams’ absence. But, the most important incident having a large deal of influence on Shiites’ political jurisprudence in Iran is the formation of the evolutions related to constitutionalism revolution. According to the importance of this issue, the present study aimed at investigating the confrontation between the new and old government theories during constitutionalism era and its effects on Shiites’ political mindset. The main question was that what effects had the confrontation between the new and old government theories exerted on the Shiites’ political mindset? To answer this question, the study hypothesis has been proposed as follows: the confrontation between the old and new government theories has caused the blossoming and enriching of the Shiites’ political mindset. To investigate this issue, data have been collected through library research and taking notes from the other existent books and resources. The study findings signified the justification of the aforesaid hypothesis and the constitutionalism revolution was known as one of the main factors given rise to the change in the Shiite jurisprudents’ notions. Hence, according to the researcher, the Shiite political jurisprudence could be divided into pre-constitutionalism and post-constitutionalism periods in the current study. In the period before the constitutionalism, sultans and governors were separately dealing with the people’s worldly and religious affairs but it was after constitutionalism that the emphasis was made more than ever before on the political aspects of the Shiites’ ideas. Moreover, the formation of an Islamic government and political government by the jurisprudents was placed amongst the top discussions by Shiite thinkers