ABSTRACT
In 1985, one of the members at that time of the Council of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ibra-hı-m Amı-nı-, wrote: “The Qur’an has saddled Muslims with a heavy responsibility of fighting tyranny, corruption, exploitation and colonialism, and defending the oppressed and the exploited.”1
The assertion of the rights and the defence of the oppressed is one of the leitmotivs of contemporary radical Islamism, both – as we have seen – for Sunnis such as Qutb and for the theology of political Shiism.2 The theme is taken up by Ru-holla-h Khumaynı-(Khomeini) in the introduction to his book Islamic Government:
