The Relationship Between Knowledge And Leadership In Ibn Sina’s Thought

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Leadership in Islamic society is a concept that has a high status in Ibn Sina’s view, because the leader of the Islamic society must be able to lead Muslims in the affairs of this world and the next world. To this end, he must be eligible for the knowledge proportionate to this serious task. Ibn Sina’s desired knowledge is not only the conventional knowledge that is accessible to everyone, but also there must be a decent inward mechanism so that man can achieve the highest level of knowledge and habitual intelligence, aka intellectus adeptus. Therefore, it is the stage where human intellect relates to active intellect which can be sought in the other world, providing us with a proper understanding of the happiness in the hereafter; and in these circumstances that the leadership of the Islamic society qualified to be at the top of Muslim affairs. What Ibn Sina proposes lies within the framework of the political philosophy of the classical Islamic era, or the establishment of a sublime system in Islamic philosophy where the inward mechanism for acquiring it and its achievement lay the groundwork for the realization of leadership in society: the model is a leadership criterion in Islamic philosophy. The article maintains that Ibn Sina’s theory has inward inconsistencies in this regard. Besides, the study demonstrates that Ibn Sina attempted to present a picture of the ideal type of leadership in the Islamic world, thereby providing the comparison of leadership in Islamic societies with non-Islamic societies.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Islamic Political Studies
Volume 2, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
March 2020
Pages 143-168

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