Abstract
Studies in contemporary Middle Eastern politics tend to see, when Islamic elements are strongly involved as in the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Sunni or Shi'ite peculiarities in them. Hence, for example, the present Iranian regime is cosidered to be a Shi'ite theocracy, and the Sunni-Shi'ite rivalry is emphasized in the political tension in the Gulf region. But peculiarities can be discerned only in the framework of general characteristics. We cannot distinguish what is particularly Sunni from what is Shi'ite without knowing what is more commonly Islamic. This is much more so in the contemporary scene, where we cannot reduce Islamic elements to the historical Sunni-Shi'ite cleavage. This article deals with the Islamic political ideas which either are given substance in contemporary political movements or are potentially of political importance, so that we may understand what people in the Middle East intend to realize, before judging their behavior by conventional Western standards. After making a sketch of general Islamic political concepts through the works of present day Arab scholars of political science, Law and Islamic history, a comparison is made on two levels, using this sketch. Firstly, two ideologues who pointed to the Islamic government as "the governance of the jurist" are put together. In the Sunni world, Muhammad Rashid Rida, the moving spirit of the Manarists, constructed the theory of Khilafah al-Mujtahid (the Caliphate of the Jurist) in the 1920s, while it was put forward as Vilayat-i Faqih (the Guardianship of the Jurisconsult) by Ruhollah Khomeini in the Shi'ite milieu. Secondly, two "Islamic Constitutions" are examined closely: A Draft Islamic Constitution written by the Sunni 'ulama' in Egypt in 1978, and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, inaugurated in 1979, which is considered to reflect the Shi'ite tradition. Through these comparisons, many common characteristics are found. Among these are: the idea of the Divine Sovereignty; the human being as its trustee; division of the political power which stems from the Divine Sovereignty into Islamic Law and the 'Ummah (the community), hence the double structure of political power; the primary of Islamic Law and its practical bearer, the 'ulama'; emphasis on the unity of the 'Ummah and the anticolonialist tendency; recognition of the existence of plural states within the 'Ummah, provided they take a unified stand in international relations; emphasis on the Shura (Consultation), which is the basis for the idea of Islamic democracy. These common characteristics, or the similarity in general, would be explained by the fact that they all belong to the stream which manifests itself as "movements for the revival of Islam". These movements and their leaders try to reconstruct Islamic political ideas which would work in the contemporary world. This separates them from the traditionalists who attach themselves to classical issues including the Sunni-Shi 'ite differentials.
