The Need for a Concept of Social Justice: An Investigation of Different Approaches in Shiite Political Thought

Studying various views of the concept of social justice which have found their implicit or explicit expression throughout the Shi‘i political thought, this article seeks to present a context in which there exists the concept and principles of social justice and the need to use it in organizing the communal life. To Imām Ali (may peace be upon him), to organize our human communal life we necessarily need the concept and principles ofsocial justice which he himself have stated them in an exhaustive manner. Khāwajah Nasir al-Din of Tus has elaborated on the Shi’i idea of social justice taken from Imām Ali’s assertions about this concept. Al-Fārābi states that only resorting to the whole set of legal injunctions (ahkame shari‘ah) as social values is essential. Mulla Sadrā, too, though he thinks that his view on this in the realm of civic philosophy is philosophical, startshis discussion with an explicit emphasis on and a positive attitude towards the concept and principles of social justice; however, he goes on to present the whole set of legal injunctions for the organization of communal life as much the same as most Muslim jurists(faqihs) do rather than to formulate principles of social justice.