Ma`rifat Siyasi

The present paper aims at providing an answer to the question as to what the position of intellect in Shi’a political philosophy is and what its role in Shi’a political system is? The author sheds light on the effects of intellect on formulating the Shi’a political system by explicating its significant and overall features in Islamic philosophy ( through a Shi’a approach). Considering the fact that in Islamic philosophy intellect is along with revelation and exposition of its decision, that there is a hierarchy of intellects, that pure intellect is a sort of intellect which is dominant over senses, illusion, and lust, and is not under their influence, that practical intellect follows theoretical intellect, that it is possible to acquire knowledge, and that reality is not something relative, the research findings show that Shi’a political system is organized on the basis of a relation with active intellect along with divine guardianship. In this system, the governmental issues are not managed according to personal tendencies; rather they are managed according to people’s real interests, which are inferred from revelation or are recognized in the light of theosophists’ and jurists’ holy understandings. Therefore, public will has a special position and special limits in this system.