The Criteria of Legitimacy from the View Point of Islam

Legitimacy is always one of the challenging and controversial topics in political philosophy and for this reason many philosophers and political scientists have paid attention to this issue because if there is no legitimacy the raison detre of the government is questioned. The main question regarding the legitimacy is that from what source the rulers get their right to rule and on which basis people follow these rulers? In the present article initially different viewpoints about the legitimacy is discussed then it tries to answer the view point of Islam whether it is God who grants legitimacy to the government and whether the right to rule and legitimacy in Islam is such that the right of both.God and people are duly fulfilled. In other words in Islam the government receives its legitimacy from two sources one is God and the other is people. The concept like God's right (haghghoallah) and people's right (haghgholalnas) and "basis" or "criteria" of legitimacy are used in this article to distinguish them from each other. Finally the article comes to the conclusion that from the view point of Islam the basis of legitimacy is divine but the criteria are people. On this basis the government while adhering to the right of God has to respect people's right (haghgholalnas) and should be responsive to them.