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20 - Islamic Constitutionalism: Iran

from VII - Challenges to Liberal Democratic Constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

David S. Law
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Summary

The Islamic Republic of Iran prides itself on being the only country with an entirely codified Islamic legal system, and on being a pioneer in the Islamization of constitutional law. Part 1 of this chapter provides an overview of the different models of Islamic constitutionalism currently found in the Muslim world. Part 2 reviews Iran’s highly creative and ambitious project of Islamizing an entire civil law system and codifying Islamic law over a forty-year period and draws attention to the high degree of dynamism and reinterpretation of Shiite legal precepts that this project has required. Part 3 focuses on the making and amendment of Iran’s 1906/1907 and 1979 constitutions – which fused foreign, republican, and Islamic elements in unique ways – and on the role of the 1979 constitution in defining and regulating Iran’s distinctive present-day blend of institutional conflict and policy disagreement among religious conservatives, pragmatic reformers, and revolutionary leftists. Over time, a combination of innovative reinterpretation of Shiite legal principles and constitutional and institutional reform have reshaped the complex relationship between left-leaning legislative institutions constrained by Islamic principles and conservative religious scholars who operate outside the political system but are the arbiters of what it means to respect Islamic principles.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Primary Sources

Arjomand, Saïd Amir, ‘Islamic Constitutionalism’ (2007) 3 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 115140, doi:10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.3.081806.112753.Google Scholar
Grote, Rainer and Röder, Tilmann J. (eds.), Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity (Oxford University Press, 2012), chs. 1.1–1.3, 3.1, 4.1.Google Scholar
Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Westview, 1999).Google Scholar
Peters, Rudolph, ‘From Jurists’ Law to Statute Law or What Happens When the Shari’a Is Codified’ (2002) 7(3) Mediterranean Politics 8295.Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Arjomand, Saïd Amir, ‘Constitution of the Islamic Republic,’ in Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VI, fasc. 2 (Mazda, 1992) 150–158, https://perma.cc/9MPE-SH3G.Google Scholar
Buchta, Wilfried, Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2000), https://perma.cc/8AZK-S78S.Google Scholar
Schirazi, Asghar, The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic (I.B. Tauris, 1998).Google Scholar
Zubaida, Sami, Law and Power in the Islamic World (I.B. Tauris, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Many laws, ordinances, and regulations are archived in Persian and English translations by the Iran Data Portal: http://irandataportal.syr.edu.Google Scholar

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