Islamic Politics Free of Deception
What follows is a summary of remarks made by Hojat-ol-Islam Nasser Rafiei, a lecturer at Al Mustafa International University, about politics in Islam:
The concept of politics in Islam is different from the one introduced by the West. A religion without politics is not religion; as Imam Khomeini said, if someone separates religion from politics, he neither correctly understands religion nor politics.
All the Imams were martyred because they were political and had conflicts with the rulers during their period. If they had had no political inclination and had just been just busy with their worship, they would have not been harassed and martyred by tyrant rulers of their time.
Politics in the West equals deception and trickery. This is while Imam Ali (AS) once said practicing forgiveness and justice is one of the adornments of a politician. Some virtues have been accordingly defined for a politician; first of all, the politician needs to respect the rights of God, the living, and the dead, obey divine orders, and refrain from what has been banned by God.
We should examine the lives of imams as a whole, rather than highlighting a part of their lives for our political purposes.
Obedience to a just ruler is one of the other characteristics of a political person. Here, based on the narratives by Ahl al-Bayt (SA), a just ruler and wali need not necessarily be infallible.
The third characteristic of a political man is to respect the rights of the dead. We should not slander and insult the dead, but we should forgive them and seek forgiveness for them, except for people like Shimr and Yazid, who should always be cursed.
