The scope of religious government

The present paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the governmental scope of religion is dealt with and a number of religious and non-religious arguments are presented in this regard. The second part includes the views of the critics of this approach and advocates of the limitation of the scope of religion to personal affairs and its withdrawal from government matters. Since the basic goal of this paper is the presentation of the views of the critics, in the first part the religious arguments are given briefly, but they are fully discussed in the second part. This part presents six arguments. The first two arguments, borrowed from Abd-ol-Karim Soroush, separates religion from government with regard to the implications of the type of man’s expectation from religion and the lack of such capability. The next four arguments, proposed by Doctor Haeri and Mahdi Bazargan, lead to the exclusion of religion from government on the basis of the disparity between religion and government in terms of stability and change, of scope and goals, and of method. And the final argument considers the existence of relation between and religion and government to against the practical conducts of the infallible Imams.