Shi ī Idealism and Its Role in Establishing a Desired Socio-political System (with emphasis on the history of Shi ism in the contemporary Iran)

Ideals have always been significantly far away from realities of human life. To get as much nearer to these realities as possible has been a matter of major concern for thinkers and scientists throughout history. The history of Shi‘ism in Iran provides a ground for the study of the issue at hand.This research is intended to study and analyze the history of Iran (formerly Persia), especially in the last five centuries, from the beginning of Safavid Dynasty to the advent of the Islamic Revolution, in order to detect whether the intended ideals have been fulfilled. This provide us with a paradigm that makes it possible to have a better understanding of the forthcoming future events and to discover what the logic of changes in the history of Shi‘ism in Iran (after the Muslim conquest of Persia) would be.The analysis has been made here draws upon an allegorical model, i.e. the model of khal‘ and lubs,. In this allegory, two concepts are involved: realities and ideals. Realities have to be taken as identical to some tightened or shabby clothes that are stripped of the body of ideals (khal‘) and fine good clothes are put on (lubs) instead.Shi‘ī ideals are, in essence, dynamic, progressive and self-correcting when they occur in every historical process and approach their points of perfection and self-realization in the heart of realities in terms of their relations to the khal‘ and lubs of realities.The research seeks to cast light on the fact that, having exposed to the ideals, the history of Shi‘ī Iran makes it possible for the Iranian to establish their own desired political and social system, which is nothing but a system based on the ‘authority of religious jurist’.