Justice is among the concepts on which there is no consensus among scholars. Since each school is influenced by concepts of epistemology, ontology, and anthropology, there are different meanings of justice in different schools. This article attempts to explain the concept of justice from the perspective of Islamic political thought.
The best impression of justice is to consider it as a product of a structure. It is necessary to point out that the concepts fall into two categories. In one category are the concepts that can be used directly and defined clearly and evidently, like the concept of truth — defined as speech which accords with reality. But the other group of concepts is not this clear, and it is necessary to combine concepts in both categories to make a structure through which the desired concept can be achieved.
The concept of justice is among the second category concepts. In other words, it is explained and clarified by putting several elements together among which we can refer to the political system, agents, elites, government managers, structures, institutions, government organizations, laws, regulations, guidelines, people and citizens' behavior. To explain Islamic political thought on justice it is necessary to examine the elements further to clarify Islam’s view in this regard and provide an opportunity to study the relationship of justice and progress.
Justice in the Islamic political system
There have been serious concerns about justice in the Islamic political system among scientists, jurists, philosophers, speakers, and scholars of ethics during the Islamic history and each has explained borders and properties of a just Islamic system from their own viewpoints.
Of course, this article addresses concerns and viewpoints of jurists and philosophers only.
Jurists often used the words justice and oppression to divide political systems. They considered governments just or oppressive based on their rulers. Of course, this justice and oppression pertains to the political system’s principle. That is, if a political system possesses divine legitimacy, it’s just and if not it’s oppressive and tyrannical. Of course a just political system is divided into prophetic political systems which imply the Islamic prophet’s government, political system of innocent imams and political system of the occultation age in which a fully-qualified jurist heads as a general deputy of imam of the age. All types of political systems other than the 3 addressed systems are recognized as a tyrannical system which is divided into tyrannical systems which have non-Muslim rulers and those with Muslim rulers. From this viewpoint there is a difference between the Safavid reign which had Shia rulers and the Seljuks reign with Sunni rulers.
Muslim political philosophers divide political systems based on virtue whose main base is balance and justice. According to them, a just political system is one with four divisions: excellent votes, utopia, excellent nation and excellent head. Otherwise there will be an evil, unwise, subversive political system. Therefore, from philosophers’ viewpoints, justice is key to dividing governments since it only exists in an excellent political system and not in other systems and this separates it from other ones.
Based on what was said, according to religious jurisprudence, real and desirable progress will be materialized in a just system and in an excellent political system according to political philosophers.
Of course, philosophers used prosperity instead of the word progress and this is observable in great philosophers’ interpretations like Farabi and Mulla Sadra.
Imam Khomeini (May his soul rest in peace) has also mentioned it in philosophy writings and has offered the perspective that if a society looks for prosperity, it should move on the axis of excellent presidency which, of course, refers to the prophet, imams and fully –qualified jurists. From Muslim philosophers ‘viewpoints, prosperity is divided into real and unreal or illusory .Real prosperity focuses on eternal maintenance, i.e., it looks for mundane and hereafter good but unreal or false one is based on worldly progress which is referred to as development in the new world. So development which focuses on material growth is illusory prosperity but if it means growth in economy, transcendence in culture and balance in political arena, it is real prosperity and will have many benefits and blessings to the society.
Justice in government agents and elites
From Islamic thought perspective, behavior, performance and actions of all government agents and directors_ including political, economic, cultural, judicial and legal agents in different levels of the system _ affect just governance in a society. Public interest is an important benchmark to measure this important issue, i.e. if the culture ruling system agents includes service culture and precedence of public interests over individual ones, justice will govern more in the society day by day and result in progress but if the behavior and performance of system’s agents is based on precedence of individual benefits over public ones, it will diverge more from justice and progress and development won’t be made as a result. Careful examination of the Islamic culture and innocent imams’ advice and imam Khomeini and the supreme leader speeches show that there has been an emphasis on government agents to have justice element. In this regard, examples like judge fairness, justice of congregational and Friday prayers Imams, and justice of the leadership can be referred to. Commitment of the people with government posts is also very important in the Islamic political system. Of course its main condition is expertise. Therefore, commitment and expertise are not against each other at all. In an important story, if a person accepts a post and knows that there is someone more suitable than him for the post, he is then classed among the traitors and is by definition unjust.
Justice in institutions and structures
In Islamic political thought, there has been a special emphasis on establishing just institutions and structures to make progress. To explain this component of justice, here is an example; when the Islamic revolution defeated and the Islamic republic was established, there were dense and cumulative deprivations remained from the past regime and there was a serious need to reduce them. In this regard, one main initiative of Imam Khomeini to reduce them was to establish new institutions. So institutions like assistance committee, Islamic revolution housing foundation, construction jihad, and Basij of the poor were opened up. It had an approach to supply justice and fight oppression.
What is considered as enjoining good and forbidding morality needs definite social formations to mind society and government to achieve more justice in the society. Therefore, it is worth noting that establishing institutions should take place in a way that more and more affairs are taken over by people and government’s role diminishes so that holy ayah " لیقوم الناس بالقسط"is materialized. In this regard, Imam Khomeini emphasized frequently that government should not be in charge of affairs that people can do and it is good for it to supervise and make policies only. This will help to achieve progress and justice and offer the society effective capabilities.
Justice in rules and guidelines
The main part of justice and oppression definition pertains to the rules. Therefore, there is an important relationship between rules and justice. To elaborate, if just people possess unjust rules, nothing good will proceed and there will be no justice. Legislation by parliaments plays an important role in this regard. It is necessary for the parliament to put unjust rules, which need serious reforms, on the agenda and to improve them seriously from justice viewpoint. Of course there might be rules that are just when approved but not at the moment. Therefore, it is necessary to make a serious revision in this regard. One of the basics of progress is legal system of the society and as a result if rules include justice, desirable progress will be made.
The last point on just rule is it should originate divine rules based on religious fundamentals. Otherwise desirable justice won’t be achieved and real progress won’t be made.
Justice in citizens and public behavior
In Islamic political thought, just behavior is that all levels and citizens of the society have suitable political culture and cooperation in implementing and achieving justice. Holy Quran’s ayahs approve this. Furthermore both ayahs « لقد أرسلنا رسلنا بالبینات و أنزلنا معهم الکتاب و المیزان لیقوم الناس بالقسط» and « تعاونوا علی البر و التقوا» confirm this.
Also ayah « ان الله یامرکم ان تودو االامانات الی اهلها و اذا حکمتم بین الناس ان تحکموا بالعدل ان الله نعما یعظلکم به ان این الله کان سمیعاً بصیرا» can be referred to ,which is based on trusteeship view as a justice-oriented perspective. If all cooperate in a society, justice will be achieved.
Now, regarding the above explanations, to interpret imam Ali’s words who said, justice is that everything is on its own place, it should be stated that justice as a structure concept will be achieved when political system’s principle is divine leadership and structures, agents, rules and everyone’s behavior is just and in their proper place. Therefore, justice based on 5 characteristics explained, will lead to progress due to making corrections in people’s behavior. Otherwise, there will be problems. In other words, if there is a defect in a justice structure, there will be a similar fault in progress.
Progress and political thought in Islam
Progress in the Islamic political system means political balance, consistence, and integrity and it will be made when system’s bases move on the axis of divine legitimacy which in the age of occultation a fully qualified jurist has this position only. Progress in agents means just, committed and expert agents. In a just political system, everyone who accepts responsibilities and tasks should recognize a proper situation identifying working and management methods and know patterns to achieve it and plan in that direction. Progress in rules arena means approval and implementation of just, updated, and consistent rules. Progress in citizens’ behavior arena means people with cultural and human behavior and maximum rational, wisely, moral and lawful cooperation. As a result, justice and progress correlate. In other words, as much effort is made to achieve justice as is made to achieve progress.
Precedence of justice over progress
Undoubtedly, in precedence, justice precedes progress and basically it is precedent to all affairs like security. Imams ‘practical manners and holy Quran’s ayahs approve this. In Amir-al- Moemenin practical manners, when he is said to avoid dismissal of Muaviye due to some issues, he doesn’t accept and says he doesn’t hold necessary qualifications. As a result, he doesn’t let him hold the position even for a day. Hazrate Ali also said to Ibne Abbas , “ ruling people has no value unless right is stood up for and oppression is warded off”. This has also been stated in the holy Quran ayahs. For example ayah
« الذین امنوا و لم یلبسوا ایمانهم بظلم اولئک لهم الامن و هم مهتدون»
can be referred to based on which the condition to worldly and hereafter security is considered as faith and avoiding oppression.
Therefore progress which is just and leads to more justice is approved in Islamic thought. But if progress in each level is inconsistent with justice, it won’t benefit the Islamic society. Since based on Islamic thought, the world is an introduction to the hereafter and so it can’t be considered as a principle if it were, the Islamic religious doctrine would be disrupted and have no clear meaning.
Based on this doctrine, religious and spiritual values have an absolute precedence over material ones. This is against what is seen in worldly doctrines in which material values have precedence over spiritual ones.
Justice obstacles
One of the basic discussions in Islamic thought is to build an exemplary human and society. Therefore, according to this thought if human is made, the movement towards justice will accelerate since he has to establish justice inside himself first to implement justice in a society.
Achieving justice in human depends on happenings and changes based on religious instructions in 3 levels. Human is a creature with 3 rational, cordial and sensory and superficial aspects and each of the religious parts has come down to train one of these aspects. Religious principles and beliefs have come down to train wisdom and correct and adjust human beliefs since if human’s wisdom and beliefs are trained , he believes in monotheism and divine leadership and follows prophethood, Imamat and Velayat. Also the most important benefit of wisdom is to attain divine justice, i.e., human will accept justice of God completely and willingly. In this regard, the holy Quran has stated,
« الن الله لا یظلم مثقال ذره»
Which means God who whenever wills, it will happen, won’t oppress. As a result, accepting to worship God completely means he can not get close to oppression in any arena and should always consider justice.
Cordial aspect of human focuses on tendencies domain. Religion has brought ethics to correct tendencies. Ethics has two axes: virtues and evils based on which virtues should exist in human and evils should be removed. Justice centers moral virtues and oppression and ignorance center moral evils. Therefore according to the moral aspect, if human corrects his tendencies based on religious teachings, he will possess justice which includes values like sagacity, bravery and serenity. Such a person will consider himself responsible and try to move on the route of evaluating virtues and correcting evils. In other words, a perfect human is one who always fights perfection obstacles which exist inside the individual and outside in the society.
The third level of human’s existential layers pertains to senses and appearances and belongs to jurisprudence and religious law domain. Religion wants to correct human behavior and establish public order and avoid usurpation, rubbery, oppression and cruelty in general through jurisprudence. It has also considered definite regulations to protect lives (individual security) properties (economic security) wisdom (mental security) or generations (family security) to establish just order in the society through which real progress will be made in the society and the society will flourish.
Regarding the above explanations, justice and progress can be enumerated in 3 levels of ideological, moral and superficial obstacles. In contrast , there are justice and progress factors in the same levels .in other words , as much help is put forward to materialize religion in the mentioned levels as is done to achieve justice and progress in the society.
Conclusion
Finally, it should be pointed out that progress concept like justice is a structure concept. Therefore since progress in the Islamic society doesn’t only mean economic it is necessary to make efforts to attain it in different levels simultaneously.
It is concluded that justice and progress should eventually lead to political balance, stability, economic development and cultural transcendence which result in making power in political arena, creating thoughts in cultural arena and making wealth in economic arena. In this way, a new Islamic civilization will be made which can be considered as a transcended civilization. It will be opposite to the western civilization, which is referred to as a secularist or worldly civilization. If such an Islamic civilization is made, real and true prosperity will be achieved and justice and progress will take place simultaneously.
Resource:
خردنامه همشهری
Issue 78

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