The Ashura Movement and Dimensions of Reinterpreting Islamic Political Rationality

To honor the Ashura movement, it is essential to reinterpret Islamic political rationality in its various dimensions. This task necessitates recognizing and distinguishing the roles
of three significant variables, including goals, methods, and tools in this movement. Characteristics such as universality, stability, global applicability, sanctity, alignment with human nature and religious texts, and the maximal acceptance of the goals of the Ashura movement underscore their central importance relative to methods and tools. These characteristics even render the nature and role of methods and tools meaningful only in light of the goals. Accordingly, the enjoining of good and forbidding of evil, as the most crucial religious and political goal, alongside other sacred and universal goals of the Ashura movement, determines the nature and functioning of methods such as mourning rituals and tools, because methods and tools are valuable only when they serve meaningful goals. Moreover, paying attention to the hierarchical relationship between the three variables of knowledge, affection, and obedience to the Imams, particularly Imam al-Ḥusayn, is crucial in deriving religious and political models from the Ashura movement. This focus prevents excess emotionalism and enhances our religious and political rationality. Ultimately,
the necessity of religious and political rationality in the Ashura movement requires distinguishing the intrinsic attributes of the Imams, especially Imam al-Ḥusayn, from their incidental attributes. Specifically, recognizing their role in religious guidance, from which the enjoining of good arises, is more important than focusing on seeking worldly and otherworldly needs from them. Thus, our religious and political rationality demands that we seek and follow the true goals of the Imamate and the Ashura movement, utilizing only those methods and tools that prove useful and effective, as methods and tools are temporary and transient and do not possess inherent sanctity.