ISLAMIC THOUGHT AND THE CIVIL STATE A READING OF SAYYED AL-SISTANI’S EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ AFTER 2003

Abstract

The emergence of the concept of the civil state dates back to the era of the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the eighteenth century, and even now the concept still raises a lot of controversy and differences in views, as some see that the civil state is the opposite of the religious state, while others say that the civil state is not against religion. Rather, it is the opposite of the authoritarian state, regardless of its religious, military, tribal, or sectarian form, and it was a reaction to the tyrannical experience of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. Therefore, it is not correct to project the experience of the Catholic Church and its tyrannical behaviors in Europe onto Islamic law, and Islam does not aim to Building power or a theocratic state. We can say that the religious authority represented by Sayyed Ali al-Sistani, after the year 2003, called for, in its directives, positions and responses, the building of a civil state in Iraq, a state of constitution, law, freedoms, the supremacy of the popular will, and the strengthening of the spirit of citizenship, and although Sayyed al-Sistani did not use the description of the civil state categorically, But the form he wanted for Iraq was completely similar to the concept of a civil state.