Traditional Secularism v. Modern Secularism A Word on the Nature of Fiqh and the Related Constitutional System

Abstract

This research attempts to put forward an argument against the claim that the current legal/political system of Iran is undergoing a re-secularization process. It is argued, by focusing on concepts of the secular and the sacred/religious, that the system was never de-secularized by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The reason derives from the facts that the main allegedly religious content of the new system is per se a secular entity, and that the existing constitutional structure is overwhelmingly secular. The content overwhelmingly originates in fiqh which is argued to be a secular entity, i.e., an amoral one, as it accommodates immorality. It is then claimed that what occurred by the Revolution was indeed the triumph of a traditional secularism over an exogenous modern secular establishment. Therefore, since the early months of the new regime a process of re-modernization, an endogenous one, has gradually taken form.