The problem of the relationship between faith and knowledge in Murtaza Mutahhari’s philosophy

Abstract

This paper deals with the views of Murtaza Mutahhari (1902–1989), contemporary Iranian philosopher and a major ideologue and close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of 1978–1979 Iranian Revolution. The author traces the growth of the political doctrine of the so-called ‘Rule or guardianship by a jurist’ (vilayat-i faqih), as developed by Mutahhari, and shows that the latter argues for the dominant role of religion in Iranian society on the assumption that the very foundation of the teachings of Islam is reason. The central point of Mutahhari’s theory is the problem of the relation of faith (iman) to knowledge (ilm), in approaching which he follows along the traditional lines of Islamic philosophy. According to Mutahhari, between faith and knowledge there is no strict dichotomy, and indeed they are related to one another as two complementary concepts representing, respectively, the explicit and the hidden sides of the same reality. Knowledge, from this point of view, can be understood as a necessary condition of religious faith (iman-i mazhabi) which, in its turn, should be interpreted as one of the basic elements of individual consciousness and the most important ‘constitutive’ principle in man, Iranian society and the Islamic state.