An Analysis of the Role of Imami Jurisprudential Foundations in Shaping the Constitution of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

Abstract

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution marked a fundamental transformation in the structure of political authority and public law in modern Iran. Although the resulting constitutional order incorporated modern institutions such as parliament, representative government, statutory legislation, and legal limitations on monarchical power, its formation cannot be understood independently of Imami Shiʿi jurisprudence and the religious-normative context of Iranian society. This study aimed to analyze the role of Imami jurisprudential foundations in shaping the legal and institutional structure of the Constitution of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. Using a doctrinal, historical, and analytical approach, the study examined the interaction between jurisprudential principles and emerging constitutional institutions, with particular attention to the limitation of political authority, the position of Sharia, parliamentary legislation, popular representation, and the supervisory role of jurists. The analysis demonstrates that the jurisprudential foundations of constitutionalism were primarily organized around the prohibition of oppression and despotism, justice, consultation, commanding right and forbidding wrong, preservation of social and political order, public responsibility, and juristic supervision. These principles provided a normative basis for restricting arbitrary monarchical authority and legitimizing a law-governed political order during the occultation. Their institutional expression was particularly evident in the establishment of the National Consultative Assembly, recognition of representative participation, acceptance of statutory regulation in public affairs, constitutional limitation of royal authority, and the requirement that legislation remain consistent with Sharia. Article Two of the Supplementary Constitutional Law constituted the clearest institutional manifestation of this jurisprudential framework by providing for the supervision of parliamentary enactments by qualified mujtahids. The study concludes that the Constitutional order reflected a model of supervisory jurisprudence in which jurists did not directly govern the entire political system but exercised normative authority over the Sharia compatibility of legislation. Accordingly, Imami jurisprudence contributed to Iranian constitutionalism principally by legitimizing limited government, institutional accountability, representative participation, and religious supervision within an emerging modern constitutional structure.