The Role of Shi’a’s Political Culture in Constitutional Movement

One of the most important movements and effective events of Iran’s current history is the constitutional movement which originally began under the house of justice movement. The main question of this research is that, how effective were the different elements of Shi’a’s political culture on the identity, stages and the process of this movement? To answer this question, firstly, the Shi’a’s political culture was defined as a related collection of beliefs, values, rituals and symbols system which have been the bases of Shi’a’s actions and reactions against the political systems and governments. Therefore the beliefs and values system consists of: Unity of God, Prophethood, Imamat (Leadership), resurrection and justice which consist of the elements such as: friendship of the Prophet’s progeny and abhorrence from their enemies, the guardianship of the Prophet’s family (pbuh), the jurisprudent’s common deputyship of the infallible Imams (pbuh), justice-seeking, Jihad and Martyrdom-seeking. Similarly, the rituals and symbols include religious places, mottos, and religious occasions and ceremonies. Then we deal with the investigation of different stages of this movement by referring to the first hand historical sources of constitution history such as historical books and documents like letters, telegrams, manifestos etc. by descriptive-analytical method, so that the rate of effectiveness of Shi’a’s political culture elements on this huge movement be clear. The investigations show that the elements of Shi’a’s political culture have had important effects on the different stages of constitutional movement from its beginning to the end. Also the investigation of people and movement leaders’ needs and requests show that, their utmost needs and requests are the requests which are based on the main elements of Shi’a’s political culture. The investigation of the opponents’ reaction of this movement such as the court and the agents of the autarchy and colonialism show that, they emphasize on the Shi’a’s religious elements in order to oppose the movement or deviate from it suggesting that these elements are pivotal in this movement.