The Interaction of Political Theory and Practice in Shia Political Thought and Its Role in the Qajar Developments

Looking at the historical developments of Islam, we can distinguish three tendencies around thought and action. The tendency that prioritizes action, the tendency that prioritizes theory over action, and the third tendency believe in the interaction of theory and political action. Among these, Shiites belong to the third tendency. Throughout history, the Shiites have chosen various approaches, including taqiyyah, reform, and revolution, in interaction with the political environment. With the approach of the contemporary Shiite period, it has distanced itself from the approaches of Taqiyya and reform, and especially with the emergence of the Qajar and Pahlavi periods in the contemporary history of Iran, it approaches the revolutionary approach and the attempt to form an Islamic government. Here, the main question of the research is what effect the objective context and developments of the Qajar period had on the Shiite political thought in that period and how this thought influenced the political action of the Shiite scholars active in this era. The result of this article is that the objective context and developments of the Qajar government on the one hand lays the groundwork for constitutionalism and also on the other hand lays the groundwork for the Islamic Revolution.