Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2009
Recommended Citation
Haider A. Hamoudi,
Between Realism and Resistance: Shi'I Islam and the Contemporary Liberal State,
11
Journal of Islamic Law and Culture
107
(2009).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.pitt.edu/fac_articles/109
Included in
Arabic Studies Commons, Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Islamic Studies Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons
Comments
On the question of commitment to the liberal state, Shi'i doctrine, which can be gleaned from the voluminous works of modern Grand Ayatollahs, can be ambiguous. Nevertheless, some forms of what might be dubbed orthodox Shiism appear more compatible with modern notions of liberalism than others. This Article divides modern Shi'i thought into four categories and concludes as a general matter that at least three of those categories appear possibly compatible with liberalism, and a fourth almost appears to recommend liberalism as a preferred form of political order. Nevertheless, the association of liberalism with Western thought at a time when so much of the global Muslim community, Sunni or Shi'i, is deeply hostile to the West and its ideas creates a substantial obstacle to its broader adoption.