ABSTRACT
It is useful to note first that this chapter encountered a specific obstacle, i.e. Mut.ahhari did not have the opportunity to develop his political philosophy separately and systematically. What he left in this regard are a variety of rough and general political ideas which, in turn, make this chapter essentially different from the others. Two of the three of his major works on political issues namely Pira¯mu¯n-i Inqila¯b-i Islami (‘About the Islamic Revolution’) and Pira¯mu¯n-i Jumhu¯ri-yi Islami (‘About the Islamic Republic’) are in fact collections of his articles, notes, speeches and interviews about the nature of Islamic authority and Islamic revolution. The third, namely Nihz.at-ha¯-yi Islami dar S. ad Sa¯lih-yi Akhir (‘Islamic movements in the last one hundred years’) was a draft of a public lecture in 1978 which was cancelled by the SA¯VA¯K. These were all published after his assassination in 1979, but do not form a well-developed, comprehensive, cohesive, and integrative work about the Islamic political system or Islamic political ideology. They must be regarded as the result of an urgent need at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in Iran for presenting an alternative political theory. At that time Mut.ahhari was fully engaged in revolution and the eventual structure of the Islamic Republic was not clear yet.
