The Requirements of Outer Piety as a Conditionfor Holding Public Offices

That outer piety is necessarily a valid criterion for measuring the status of human beings in the sight of God Almighty cannot be claimed, but this criterion is inevitable for measuring the merit of individuals in holding public offices. Lack of knowledge of the inside or conscience of the individuals makes us inevitably resort to external criteria and outer requirements to measure the worthiness of the individuals. Rationally, people who possess the hallmarks of outer piety are also more likely than others to hold public offices. However, the narrative and rational documents show that the existence of such indicators will not reduce the need for supervision during the responsibility, and the mere existence of such a criterion in individuals cannot be an excuse to neglect their monitoring. In addition, one of the important points in using the criterion of outer piety is to correctly identify the qualifications of this criterion and the priorities among these qualifications. According to the narrations, attributes such as trustworthiness and honesty are among the most important criteria in recognizing outer piety. Also, in the event of a possible disturbance in the conditions of outer piety, the criteria that have more relevance to holding public offices have priority.