Khwājah Nasir al-Dīn al-Tūsī and the Theory of Justice

This article discusses Khwājah Nasir al-Dīn al-Tūsī's political theory as a theory of justice. His theory takes form through different steps. He proposes man's capability of perfection as the first step. In the second step the fact that human perfection can be achieved in a collective life is proposed. In the third step he points to the natural state of human society which is full of struggle and corruption. Advancing an argument, Khwājah Nasir al-Dīn explains in the fourth step that social life needs principles of justice to settle the problems of struggle and natural corruption. In the fifth step he regards that the establishment of a government and having political authority aims at dispensing justice. In the sixth step he argues that a good government is a religious government which is governed by a prophet, an infallible Imam or a fiqih who enjoys all the qualifications. In this step, along with the principle of guardianship, he proposes the necessity of maintaining a balance between various social forces by the chief of the city, and formulates his own political theory on the basis of social justice as Plato and John Rawls did.