Baqir al-Sadr and the Islamic State: A Theory for 'Islamic Democracy'

Abstract

Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, one the most innovative Islamic thinkers of the last century, is renowned for his academic contributions to Islamic economics, jurisprudence, philosophy, politics, and theology, and for his activism against Saddam's tyrannical Ba'athist regime which ultimately cost him his life on 8 April 1980. Despite his pre-eminence, Sadr's political thought has been understudied and his conception of the 'Islamic state' is widely misunderstood. This article seeks to help fill this gap by analysing the key texts in which Sadr expounds his views on the Islamic state, placing each text in its politico-historical context. In the process, the article critiques the current literature, arguing that Sadr's thought is neither authoritarian nor liberal-democratic, but rather it is a type of constitutional democracy meriting the description 'Islamic democracy'.