A Comparative Study of Contemporary Political Islamic Discourses with Imam Khomeini's Discourse

In this paper attempts have been made to study the discourses dominating political Islam to answer these questions: How can one categorize these diverse political Islam discourses? What are the similarities and differences among these discourses in general, and with the Islamic Revolution discourse in particular? The research methodology employed for this study is historical-comparative and the hypothesis of the paper suggests that various political Islamic discourses can be categorized into two jurisdictional-rational discourse and narrative discourse. Islamic Revolution is included in the first category. The two discourses, however, have major differences in central signifier and in interpretations on the floating signifiers. To make a more accurate clarification of the two discourses, in this paper the two discourses have been compared and contrasted in terms of terminology and ideological commonalities with political consequences. To that end, viewpoints of the advocates of each discourse on such variables as their interpretations of monotheism and Divine Sovereignty, justice, excommunication, Holy War, Islamic unity, attitude toward Sharia law, characteristics of Islamic government and qualities of an Islamic ruler, attitude toward political rights of people, attitude toward the West, modernization and new civilization have been studied. Findings of this paper show that despite verbal and conceptual commonalities, there are major differences between the two discourses in interpretation of these commonalities, each of which is believed to have serious political consequences.