Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr - Political Philosophy: Wilayat Al-Umma

Political Philosophy: Wilayat Al-Umma

Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr's political philosophy, known as Wilayat Al-Umma (Governance of the people), set out his view of a modern day Islamic state. Using his mastery of the Quran and his innovative subject-based approach to Quranic exegesis, Al-Sadr extracted two concepts from the Holy text in relation to governance: khilafat al-insan (Man as heir or trustee of God) and shahadat al-anbiya (Prophets as witnesses). Al-Sadr explained that throughout history there have been '…two lines. Man’s line and the Prophet’s line. The former is the khalifa (trustee) who inherits the earth from God; the latter is the shahid (witness).'.

Al-Sadr demonstrated that khilafa (governance) is ‘a right given to the whole of humanity’ and explained it to be an obligation given from God to the human race to ‘tend the globe and administer human affairs’. This was a major advancement of Islamic political theory. Al-Sadr stated that the legitimacy of a government in an Islamic state comes from the people, and not from the clerics.

While Al-Sadr identified khilafa as the obligation and right of the people, he used a broad-based exegesis of a Quranic verse to identify who held the responsibility of shahada in an Islamic state: First, the Prophets (anbiya’); second, the Imams, who are considered a divine (rabbani) continuation of the Prophets in this line; and lastly the marja’iyya (see Marja).

While the two functions of khilafa (governance) and shahada (witness; supervision) were united during the times of the Prophets, the two diverged during the occultation so that khilafa returned to the people (umma) and shahada to the scholars.

Al-Sadr also presented a practical application of khilafa, in the absence of the twelfth Imam. He argued the practical application of the khilafa (governance) required the establishment of a democratic system whereby the people regularly elect their representatives in government:

'Islamic theory rejects monarchy as well as the various forms of dictatorial government; it also rejects the aristocratic regimes and proposes a form of government, which contains all the positive aspects of the democratic system.'

He continued to champion this point until his final days:

'Lastly, I demand, in the name of all of you and in the name of the values you uphold, to allow the people the opportunity truly to exercise their right in running the affairs of the country by holding elections in which a council representing the ummah (people) could truly emerge.'

Al-Sadr was executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980 before he was able to provide any details of the mechanism for the practical application of the shahada (witness) concept in an Islamic state. A few elaborations of shahada can be found in Al-Sadr’s works.

In his text ‘Role of the Shiah Imams in the reconstruction of Islamic society’, Al-Sadr illustrates the scope and limitations of shahada by using the example of the third Shi’i Imam, Hussein ibn Ali (the grandson of the Prophet), who stood up to Yazid, the ruler at the time. Al-Sadr explains Yazid was not simply going against Islamic teachings, as many rulers before and after him had done, but he was distorting the teachings and traditions of Islam and presenting his deviated ideas as Islam itself. This, therefore, is what led Imam Hussein to intervene to challenge Yazid in order to restore the true teachings of Islam, and as a consequence laid down his own life. In Al-Sadr’s own words, the shahid’s (witness – person performing shahada or supervision) duties are ‘to protect the correct doctrines and to see that deviations do not grow to the extent of threatening the ideology itself'.

Al-Sadr has one son, Jaafar, who finished his Islamic studies in Qum but decided to serve his country Iraq as a politician. Jaafar does not believe in religious states, he believes that a "civil state" in Iraq should not contradict with religions but on the contrary "a fair and just regime should be able to earn the blessing of religions". He does not believe in taking revenge for his father's brutal assassination "Re-building a unified, democratic and stable Iraq is the only way for taking that revenge."