Abstract

Ayatollah Khomeini is famous for the theory of Islamic Government or Guardianship of the Jurists, and the Islamic Revolution. But his ever first political book known as “Kashf al Asrar” or “Revealing of the Secrets” written in 1940s shows that his politico-juridical opinion had been different before his exile to Iraq in 1960s and it, then, experienced a kind of radical change. In the current article, the researchers evaluate the main elements of Ayatollah’s governmental theory, his desired model of government in each book and the fundamental differences from the first work to the second one. In addition, the researchers investigate the effects of his personal experiences as well as Shi’a main paradigm of political jurisprudence in formation, formulation, and transformation of his thoughts and the degree of compatibility of his thoughts with his predecessors. The research reveals that his main concern in “Kashf al Asrar” was answering to the question that how should we govern, and then in Islamic Government he puts the question of, who should govern and what characteristics such a person should obtain in advance. These kinds of questions, in each book, were the result of a different juridical paradigm of thoughts that he had adopted.

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