The Nature of Political Jurisprudence in Terms of Jurisprudential Proposition

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Jurisprudence, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran; Seminary of Qom, Iran

Abstract

The present study has been aims to accurately explain the nature and scope of political jurisprudence in terms of its fundamental unit, namely the "jurisprudential proposition." I argue that the ambiguities and divergence of opinions existing in the definition of political jurisprudence and its demarcation from other disciplines, rather than being rooted in the ambiguity of the concept of "politics," result from a neglect of the epistemological nature of jurisprudence and an inattention to its propositional structure. Therefore, by adopting the "philosophy of" approach as second-order knowledge, this study attempts to provide a coherent framework for determining the identity of political jurisprudence through a logical analysis of the components of the jurisprudential proposition. In this process, it is first emphasized that political jurisprudence should not be viewed as a collection of empirical or descriptive issues within the political sphere; rather, its identity finds meaning only in the form of "prescriptive and normative propositions." In other words, political jurisprudence is a discipline that seeks to discover "divine legislation" for the regulation of political behaviors, and in this respect, it is distinguished from descriptive sciences that seek to explain "what is." Criticizing certain expansionist perspectives that equate political jurisprudence with the totality of political science, the author warns that such a conflation leads to the weakening of the epistemological foundation of jurisprudence and the destabilization of the validity of inferences.
The fundamental pillar of this research is the precise distinction between three levels: subject identification, ruling-ology, and instance-identification in the process of inferring jurisprudential propositions. The author argues that subject identification (in the sense of explaining concepts such as the state, allegiance, or elections at the stage of inference) is an inseparable part of the jurisprudential operation, as the divine ruling is always subject to the scope of its subject. However, a fundamental distinction must be made between subject identification and instance identification. Instance identification—that is, determining whether a specific international treaty or a particular political behavior constitutes a specific jurisprudential title—is not jurisprudential in nature but rather belongs to the stage of "compliance" (imtithāl) and expert judgment. For instance, a jurist infers the general ruling of "negation of dominance" (nafy al-sabīl), but determining whether joining treaties such as FATF constitutes dominance requires extra-jurisprudential expertise in political science and international relations. Neglecting this distinction has led to expectations of political jurisprudence sometimes extending beyond its actual function, or conversely, its scope being restricted to traditional issues.
In another layer, the article analyzes the types of divine rulings (prescriptive/declaratory and primary/secondary) and their implications for the nature of political jurisprudence. The author believes that political jurisprudence should not limit itself solely to "prescriptive rulings" (such as the obligation and prohibition of individual behaviors); rather, "declaratory rulings," which form the basis of institutional and legitimizing structures such as the "office of guardianship" (manṣab al-wilāya) or the "validity of contracts," constitute a large part of this discipline's scope. Furthermore, the distinction between primary and secondary rulings demonstrates that political jurisprudence possesses a dynamic capacity to respond to the changing needs of governance, provided that no conflation occurs between the "inference of a general secondary ruling" and the issuance of a governing decree (ḥukm ḥukūmī), the latter of which belongs to the category of application to instances. The findings of this research indicate that political jurisprudence can emerge as a coherent and efficient discipline in the realm of governance only when it remains faithful, on the one hand, to its traditional methodology (ijtihad based on the fourfold proofs) and, on the other hand, opens a systematic and organized channel of interaction with the humanities. This interaction does not mean the integration of jurisprudence into political science, but rather the utilization of data from descriptive sciences for more precise subject identification and more professional "instance identification." Finally, the author concludes that the nature of political jurisprudence is a function of the nature of its propositions, which revolve around "divine legislation and the relationship between the ruling and the subject. By adopting this approach, political jurisprudence not only remains immune to the danger of reductionism but can also, while maintaining its epistemological boundaries, undertake the normative guidance of the political system in a regulated manner and prevent the stagnation or baselessness of inferences when faced with modern phenomena such as digital or networked governance. Consequently, political jurisprudence, as a branch of public jurisprudence, is responsible for the inference of prescriptive rulings for political subjects; meanwhile, for the implementation of these rulings at the level of governance, it requires interdisciplinary teams and instance-identification protocols that establish a link between jurists and social science experts. This approach does not signify the end of the era of jurisprudence, but rather the beginning of a new chapter of knowledge-based governance in which jurisprudence maintains its central position in the normative engineering of society.

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Islamic Political Studies
Volume 8, Issue 1
January 2026
Pages 49-74

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