Accountability and Desired Rule in the Religious Government

The role of the states and governments in developing and promoting societies or in keeping them in backward state have so far been the subject of discussions, and in the last decades, this issue has gained tremendous importance in certain discussions raised as to ‘small government’, ‘entrepreneurial state’, ‘electronic state’, and ‘efficient state’ as a governing paradigm. The concept of ‘desired rule’ has been used increasingly in the literature on ‘development’. The idea of desired rule characterized and defined as having the property of accountability is taken to be a paradigm for the constant human development. Therefore, this article seeks to establish the fact that whether the issue of ‘accountability’ which, as one of the constituents of a desired rule, is raised at the international level, can be traced in religious texts and reports as explicitly directed to the ways a country is run. By studying the constituents mentioned above in an Alawid government, one can find out that Imam Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him, not only believed in the desired rule in theory but also he thought himself to be always committed to it in practice.