A Failed Attempt to Justify Apolitical Islam

Absolute constitutionalists are thinkers who, on the one hand, rely on the importance of adhering to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in good governance and want to form a government based on these characteristics, and on the other hand, reject mashruteh government (religious government), and believe this kind of government is in serious incompatibility with these characteristics. Absolute non-religious constitutionalists fundamentally do not believe in religion and consequently religious government, and absolute religious constitutionalists consider the special function of religion to be the training of the transcendent man and the awakening of his rational nature rather than giving directions for the formation of a special social, political system different from what the intellect of ordinary human beings finds in every age. In this study, we have tried to examine the views of some absolute Muslim constitutionalists on the relationship between constitutional government and sharia, and briefly evaluate the strength of their arguments and the consistency of their claims. Mahdi Bazargan, Yousefi Eshkevari, Mahdi Haeri Yazdi, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Hossein Bashirieh, Mohammad Abedaljaberi, Ali Abdolraziq and Mohammad Saeed Ashmavi are the thinkers whose views have been addressed in this study. An examination of the views of these thinkers shows that religious intellectuals still have a long way to go to prove a convincing and plausible non-political interpretation of Islam. It seems that if a non-political interpretation of Islam is fundamentally possible, it is not justifiably possible simply for reasons of the nature of what these thinkers have presented