Table Of ContentPhilosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
Mehdi Hairi Yazdi
A Philosophical
Treatise
on Muslim
Politics
Wisdom and Governance
Translated by Daryoush Mohammad Poor
Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
Volume 21
Series Editors
David M. Rasmussen, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Alessandro Ferrara, Dipartimento di Storia, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’,
Rome, Italy
Editorial Board Members
Abdullah An-Na’im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law,
Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale University,
New Haven, CT, USA
Robert Audi, O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame,
Notre Dame, IN, USA
Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor for Political Science and Philosophy,
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Samuel Freeman, Avalon Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Jürgen Habermas, Professor Emeritus, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main,
Frankfurt, Bayern, Germany
Axel Honneth, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Columbia
University, New York, USA
Erin Kelly, Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
Charles Larmore, W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities,
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Frank Michelman, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Tong Shijun, Professor of Philosophy, East China Normal University,
Shanghai, China
Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Advanced Study,
Princeton, NJ, USA
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Mehdi Hairi Yazdi
A Philosophical Treatise
on Muslim Politics
Wisdom and Governance
Translated by Daryoush Mohammad Poor
Mehdi Hairi Yazdi (deceased)
University of Tehran
Qom, Iran
Translated by
Daryoush Mohammad Poor
DARP
Institute of Ismaili Studies
London, UK
This work was privately funded by the family of the author (who are the legal heirs to the
author): Mohammad Reza Hairi Yazdi and Lili Hairi Yadi
Translation from the Persian language edition: “تموکح و تکمح (Ḥikmat wa Ḥukūmat)” by Mehdi
Hairi Yazdi, © Lili Hayeri Yazdi & Mohammad Reza Hairi Yazdi 1994. Published by Shadi.
All Rights Reserved.
ISSN 2352-8370 ISSN 2352-8389 (electronic)
Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
ISBN 978-3-030-96657-7 ISBN 978-3-030-96658-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96658-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
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Preface
I met Ostad Mehdi Hairi Yazdi (1923–1999) in the mid-1980s in Washington DC.
I had just finished my doctoral work and he was a senior scholar of Islamic philoso-
phy – having combined scholastic learning in his homeland and advanced graduate
studies in the USA and Canada. The passage of time has made that brief but lasting
encounter far more ethereal than the humble circumstances of a young scholar collect-
ing his courage to visit a towering philosopher of his time. I had read Ostad Hairi’s
masterpiece Hiram-i Hasti/The Pyramid of Being (1981) during my graduate study
years and marveled more than anything else at the magisterial Persian prose he com-
manded in writing of that seminal text. Much to my delight and trembling I learned
from Ostad Hairi that he too had read an essay I had just published in Persian on Mulla
Sadra’s philosophy. “When I read that essay,” he told me with a bright sparkle in his
eyes, “I thought you were much older scholar, and I wondered how come I did not know
you.” To this day, I remember the utter sense of freight at the thought that he would
actually spend time reading my Persian prose about a monumental figure like Mulla
Sadra he and I had encountered in two vastly different environments. He knew Mulla
Sadra inside out. I was inching my way towards the seminal Shi’a philosopher outside in.
I still remember vividly the impeccably clean and serene room in which the
Ostad received me in his small apartment. I remember his gracious wife’s gentle and
generous hospitality. I remember the austere presence, the joyous demeanor, the
kind, caring intellect that exuded from his person. We drank tea. We discussed phi-
losophy. His omnipresent smile was a gentle veneer to the mighty intellect that
breathed philosophical probity in his mind and soul. I could never for a breathing
second forget who he was, who his father was, what these two towering father and
son meant in the moral and intellectual lineage of his and my homeland. He of
course sensed my debilitating reverence for him and gently switched code to his
own graduate student years in Canada, and even though we spoke in Persian, a noto-
riously hierarchical language, he still managed to ease my nerves and talk vernacu-
lar philosophy with me.
At the time of this brief meeting, Ostad Hairi had not yet published his Hikmat
va Hukumat (Wisdom and Governance, 1995). I read this book soon after its publi-
cation in the mid-1990s, by which time I had finished my own book Theology of
v
vi Preface
Discontent, a chapter of which I had devoted to Ayatollah Khomeini and his idea of
Velayat-e Faqih. The thick philosophical prose of Hikmat va Hukumat in its original
Persian was and remains the exclusive provenance of a happy few who have mas-
tered that language and can engage with it.
Years went by and the beautiful memories of my short encounter with Ostad
Hairi receded into the cherished corners of my younger years. It was a pleasant
surprise when his daughter, Ms. Lili Hairi Yazdi, and subsequently her brother, Mr.
Mohammad Reza Hairi Yazdi, contacted me and told me it was the wish and will of
their late father that I be responsible for the English translation of this seminal text.
By this time, my mind was farthest removed from Shi’i scholastic learning. I had
just finished writing my book Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest (2012), which I had
mapped out on a much larger historical frame of reference. The only other scholar
I knew who was capable of handling Ostad Hairi’s prose was Daryoush Mohammad
Poor. I contacted and asked him if he were available to do this translation. Happily,
he was. I can scarcely imagine a more qualified scholar who can do what he has
happily achieved in this translation. Ostad Hairi’s philosophical prose is thick,
daunting, and self-referential. Daryoush Mohammad Poor’s English rendition does
it justice, makes it far more readily readable than the original.
The peculiarity of Ostad Hairi’s philosophical prose is of a particular vintage. He
was born to a prominent clerical family in Qom in 1923 and began his scholastic
learnings at a very young age in 1936. From that very early youth and despite his
commitment to juridical learning he was equally drawn to Islamic philosophy and
studied with some of the leading masters of his time, such as Mirza Mehdi Ashtiani.
He began his teaching career at Sepahsalar school in Iran in 1943. He subsequently
left Iran for the USA and studied at Georgetown and Michigan universities and ulti-
mately received his PhD in Islamic philosophy from Toronto University in Canada.
He eventually returned to Iran where he passed away in 1999. He had a comparative
interest in Islamic and European philosophies and aspired to offer some “solutions”
to what he perceived to have been “problems” in European philosophy. His enduring
contributions however remain in Islamic philosophy, the summation of which is this
book that he in fact paradoxically published in London and not in Iran.
The doctrine of Vilayat-i Faqih, the subject of this erudite and critical study, sur-
vived the death of its author Ayatollah Khomeini, Ostad Hairi’s teacher and friend.
The subject of this book is therefore a matter of scholastic debate and scholarly
contestation today, with little to no political consequence. The book is therefore of
only academic interest. It will be read by learned students of Shi’is doctrinal history
and discussed far away from the brick and mortar consequences of an idea that some
40 years ago wreaked havoc in Ostad Hairi and my homeland. Whatever the judg-
ment of our posterity, what remains is the presence of a master of Islamic philosophy
I was blessed briefly to meet, a philosophy I can only hope it has continued apace in
the hidden corners of a scholastic heritage evident in the Arabic and Persian prose of
its origins, and now carried dutifully to the perils and promises of another language.
New York Hamid Dabashi
April 2019
Translator’s Introduction
The 1979 ‘Islamic’ revolution in Iran was a massive shift for a Shiʿi community, in
the context of the Iranian nation state. It had now found itself at the helm of a state,
in charge of not only the worldly and political affairs of Iran but also at the centre
for decision-making on matters of faith. This new situation presented the quintes-
sential problems of authority and governance at the same time: it was not only a
matter of demanding the obedience of believers to a source of spiritual and doctrinal
authority but also the submission of citizens to the powers of the state. Thus, this
new situation was theoretically rich and politically complex.
Today, after four decades of a tumultuous history, many aspects of the phenom-
enon of the ‘Islamic Republic’ have come under sharper focus in light of national
and international issues that this nascent state has been grappling with. The social,
political, doctrinal and economic aspects of the ‘Islamic Republic’ have been under
almost constant scrutiny for the past four decades.
The particular form of governance which became the founding idea of the Islamic
Republic, the governance – or to be more precise, the guardianship – of the jurist
rapidly crystallised in the Iranian constitution in the very early days of the revolu-
tion when Mehdi Bazargan’s (1939–1995) liberal interim government was still in
charge. The idea – or theory – of the guardianship of the jurist, which is itself a
modern construct, was no less controversial and contested in the early days of the
revolution than today. The current book, written by Mehdi Hairi Yazdi (1923–1999),
one of the towering figures of what we may call ‘Islamic philosophers’ and proba-
bly one of the last of that generation of philosophers, is a theoretical critique of this
founding theory for the Iranian political system in our times.
Apart from the main proponent of the theory of the guardianship of the jurist
(walāyat-i faqīh), Ayatollah Khumayni (1930–1989), there were prominent figures
among clerical religious and political leaders who elaborated extensively on this
theory in the first decade of the life of the Islamic Republic. These include Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri (1922–2009), Ayatollah Ahmad Azari Qummi (1925–1999)
and Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli (b. 1933). With the exception of the last
vii
viii Translator’s Introduction
figure, the first two faced serious challenges and persecutions in the aftermath of the
death of the founder of the Islamic Republic.
With the new incumbent of the position of the jurist-guardian (waliyy-i faqīh),
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, disputes, confrontations and disagreements began to
emerge. Ayatollah Montazeri, who was a close disciple of the founder, the once
expected successor of Ayatollah Khumayni and a key proponent of this theory, was
put under house arrest because of his critical comments questioning the eligibility
of the new Supreme Leader. Azari Qummi had a similar fate: he was both a propo-
nent of the theory and later its critic who died under dire conditions. The critique of
both Montazeri and Azari Qummi had political as well as doctrinal groundings.
According to both of them, the present Supreme Leader was not the most eligible
and the most qualified successor. Of course, Montazeri who had experienced restric-
tions before the death of Ayatollah Khomeini was probably the earliest political
critic of the theory. Azari Qummi later expressed similar concerns, but after the
present leader was already in office, his comments became much sharper: he no
longer believed in the jurisprudential qualifications of the new leader. To him, as
well as to Montazeri, Khamenei was not a qualified mujtahid. Detailed discussions
about the political and doctrinal objections of both Montazeri and Azari Qummi can
be found in the writings of Mosen Kadivar, a close disciple of Montazeri, who is
himself a critic of the guardianship of the jurist.1
Javadi Amoli’s fate was different. He never expressed any kind of political or
doctrinal critique of the theory. He had already started developing his own theory
about it. Moreover, because of his warm relations with the incumbent leader, he did
not get into any troubles except in recent years when he started vocally criticising
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the then favourite president of the Supreme Leader. None
of these individuals who had run into different kinds of problems with the Jurist-
Guardian heading the state had indeed questioned the very philosophical and theo-
retical foundations of the idea itself, using the very concepts and methods of ‘Islamic
philosopher’.
Mehdi Hairi Yazdi, who had received traditional seminary training and had
attained the level of qualified jurisprudent – mujtahid – in the very same institution
which owed its development and growth to his own father, ʿAbd al-Karim Hairi
Yazdi (1859–1937). He had also completed his academic training in philosophy at
the University of Toronto with a PhD degree in the field of Islamic philosophy, dur-
ing the years before the revolution. It was in the second decade after the revolution
that he started deconstructing the theory starting from a seemingly abstract point of
departure which seemingly did not have any immediate relevance to the theory of
governance which was the foundation of the Islamic Republic.
The current book is an English translation of this important book, which has
remained almost totally obscure since its publication in 1995. This book – in its
current form – is the culmination and collection of a series of theoretical debates
between Hairi and two of the abovementioned proponents of the theory of the
1 See Kadivar’s website: https://kadivar.com/
Translator’s Introduction ix
guardianship of the jurist – namely Azari Qummi and Javadi Amoli. The debates
had become controversial in their own time, before they were eventually put together
in the current format in this book. Publication of the book ran into difficulties due to
censorship issues and the sharp critique he had directed at the theory itself, effec-
tively depicting it as a total fallacy invented for power grabbing. It was nonetheless
published in its original Persian without much publicity in 1995 in London. Hairi’s
critique of this theory and the alternatives he proposes for a viable working theory
for governance in the context of a country whose population is mostly Shiʿi Muslims
has rarely received meticulous scholarly attention. The only significant exception is
a chapter in Meysam Badamchi’s Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian
Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue (2017), elaborating on the key
theoretical foundations of Hairi’s propositions in the book and his articulation of
agency contract (ʿaqd-i wakālat) and joint private ownership (mālikiyyat-i shakhṣī-yi
mushāʿ) in matters of governance, based on traditional notions in Islamic jurispru-
dence. One of the significant aspects of Hairi’s work is his assessment and evalua-
tion of some of the earliest texts which put forward the idea of the guardianship pf
the jurists, namely Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī’s (1771–1829) ʿAwāʾid al-ayyām which
was ironically written during the Qājār period when a monarchy was in power, in
contrast to the Islamic Republic which claims to be a republic based on the elector-
ates’ will.
In this brief introduction, I will avoid going into details of the content. Those
who are interested in the topic and subject now have at their disposal the complete
English translation of the book as the primary text and Badamchi’s full chapter
(Chapter 1 of his book) which discusses in detail the theoretical aspects of it in sec-
ondary literature. I will, however, give an account of the genesis and completion of
this translation and add a few points on the difficulties of such a work.
I became familiar with Hairi’s Ḥikmat wa Ḥukūmat during the early years of
doing my PhD in political and social studies. I had gathered extensive notes and
made translations of some sections of the book for my references in the area of
authority and leadership, but as my research moved into new territories, the book
went into shadows. It, nonetheless, had a persistent way of coming back, and even-
tually, it was through Professor Hamid Dabashi, who approached me at the behest
of the family of the late Dr Hairi, that I was asked to complete the task of this trans-
lation. The kind introduction and suggestion of Professor Dabashi was exciting, but
the task itself was daunting. It was a sophisticated piece of philosophical work writ-
ten in a language which looks very intimidating at first sight. It takes the reader
several times of patient reading to finally get a grip on the main ideas in the book.
This attempt is even harder when you want to translate this into English.
As the patient reader will realise, the opening chapters of the book are summaries
of what one can find in Hairi’s other philosophical writings, namely his Kāwushhā-yi
ʿaql-i naẓarī, Kāwushhā-yi ʿaql-i ʿamalī (which is on the philosophy of ethics) and
Hiram-i hastī. In a sense, his philosophical contemplations are now distilled into the
form of a political theory with practical implications. In his earlier works before the
present one, Hairi has fused the tradition of Islamic philosophy from Ibn Sīnā to
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (better known as Mullā Ṣadrā) with Western philosophies,
