The Effect of Shahīd Bihishtī’s Ummat and Imāmat (Nation and Leadership) System in Compiling the Constitution

The purpose of the present study is to explain the key role of Wialī-i Faqīh (Islamic jurist) in guiding a democratic Islamic society. In this regard, the main research question is whether Shahīd Bihishtī’s Ummat and Imāmat theory could have explained the position of Wilāyat-i Faqīh with respect to people’s right to choose their own destiny. The method of study is descriptive analysis and the results showed that Shahīd Bihishtī as a propagator of religious thought could design divine freedom as the important goal of Iran’s Islamic revolution in compiling the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and within the framework of the nation’s divine rights, and then he implemented that as an efficient software in social life and the main axis of Iranian-Islamic power execution. Since materialistic schools especially liberalism, with the slogan of individual and social freedom, attract public and elite as it also had some fans among the western members of the Assembly of Experts who compiled the constitution, Shahīd Bihishtī supporting the Islamic principles criticized the intellectual resource of liberalism and revealed the superficial nature of freedom in liberalism and he regarded that without any divine origin or source and considered it as a drawback and shortfall for this materialistic school. He believed that freedom has a Godly source and is manifested with absolute awareness.