An Account of the Innovation and Formulation of the Argument of the Righteous from the Perspective of Imam Khomeini and its Comparison to Anselm’s and Descartes’ Existential Argument

This paper aims to explain an innovative formulation of the argument of the Righteous (burhān Ṣiddīqīn) from Imam Khomeini’s point of view and to compare it with the existential argument of Anselm and Descartes. This was done using a descriptive-analytical and a library research method. One of the basic shortcomings of the Anselm-Descartes existential argument is the confusion between the concept and the referent, or between primary essential predication and common technical predication, while burhān Ṣiddīqīn does not suffer from such a fault, in neither of its Avicennian or Sadrian formulations. However, the fundamental principle that enables Imam Khomeini to give a new spirit to the arguments for the proof of God is that he expresses his view and reading of burhān Ṣiddīqīn with solid foundations, and that is departure from the canonical meanings and theoretical words in proving the existence of God. He believes that the argument of the Righteous is basically grounded on intuition and does not require argumentative or philosophical preliminaries.