A Comparative Study of the Duties and Authorities of the State and Society from the Perspectives of Nahj al-Balaghah and al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyah

One of the key topics in political philosophy is the discussion of the duties and authorities of the state and society. Depending on their theology, ontology and anthropology, different schools of thought and theorists have different understandings of the duties and powers of these two towards each other. Using the comparative method, the present article attempts to compare the political thought based on Nahj al-Balaghah and the political thought ruling al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyah regarding the issue in question. The findings of this study indicate that one of the similarities between these two works is that they both admit that the state and the people in the Islamic society have certain duties and authorities, and neither book considers the duties of the people to the state to be absolute. Both works acknowledge that, like the state’s being bound to follow the path of the Shari'ah, they are conditional. The most important difference between the two books in this regard is that the rulings of al-Sultaniyah recognize wider authorities for the state in the public and private spheres of the society. The results of this study show that, despite the similarities observed in these two books about the issue in question, they basically offer two different governance policies. Also, the difference of view on the root cause of the state (the rational necessity of the state in Nahj al-Balaghah and its legal necessity in the rulings of al-Sultaniyah) is one of the fundamental differences between these two perspectives on the duties and authorities of the state and society.