Political Science Department Shahid Beheshti University
Abstract
The Prophet’s political activities in Medina indicate a particular kind of power exercise in the public domain. On the other hand, after receiving Shari’a, he promulgated it and enforced the related verdicts and teachings among people. Realization of these two facts in his behavior turns the relationship between power exercise by him and Islamic Shari’a into a basic question. The relationship between power and Shari’a in the Prophet’s political behavior is bidirectional: the relationships between power and Shari'a and the relationship between Shari'a and the relationship between Shari'a and power. The nature of power, the goals of power, the structure of political system, and the methods of power exercise are the most important domains in which power relates to Shari'a. Thus, the above-mentioned relationships show a bidirectional relationship, though it seems that in the political behavior of the Prophet power is dependent on Shari'a. The paper studies the relationship between power and Shari'a in two parts. The first part studies the relationship between Shari'a and power and, as a result, the nature of Shari'a, its goals, and the mechanisms of the realization of Shari'a in the light of power. The second part the relationship between power and Shari'a and expresses the impressionability of the nature of power, the goals of power, the methods of power exercise by the Prophet. The study shows the priority of Shari'a over power in the political behavior of the Prophet and the bidirectional relationship between them.
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