| چکیده انگلیسی مقاله |
Introduction Political power in Iran during the first period of the Qajar dynasty was centralized around the Qajar monarch, and within the political discourse of that era, the shah held the primary role in governance. An examination of the history of political thought in Iran during the first period of Qajar rule reveals that prior to the emergence of consequences from Iran's encounter with modern civilization, the elites' conception of strong governance was formed according to the ancient Iranian governance model, and their strategy for its implementation centered on establishing a powerful monarchy with absolute royal authority. The Iranian encounter with modern civilization and the revelation of its consequences, which stemmed from the intellectual superiority of modern civilization over Iran's traditional civilization, confronted the elites with a fundamental issue: the ancient governance model in Iran was incapable of responding to new challenges arising from the encounter with modern civilization, and the Qajar state, relying on the traditional concept of strong monarchy, could not overcome these new challenges. Political thinkers faced novel circumstances resulting from Iran's exposure to the implications and achievements of modern civilization. One consequence of modern civilization's intellectual dominance over Iran's traditional intellectual framework was political thinkers' new understanding of concepts such as "state" and "weak and strong state," leading to fresh ideas about extracting the Qajar state from its "weak state" status in accordance with this new understanding of modern concepts. Among these ideas, the concept of Orderly absolute monarchy became the political project of pre-constitutional era Iranian reformists. Materials and Methods This research endeavors to explain, from the perspective of modernist thinkers during the Naseri and Mozaffari periods, the weak state condition, the invalidation of the traditional Iranian governance model, and the presentation of Orderly absolute monarchy as a central idea for transitioning from the old governance model - as an idea distinct from constitutional monarchy. This is significant because, concurrent with the emergence of the Orderly absolute monarchy concept, thinkers such as Mostashar- od-Dowleh and Akhoundzadeh proposed the necessity of establishing a constitutional monarchy in Iran, and these two ideas became the focus of two competing projects among Iranian thinkers in the pre-constitutional period. The idea of Orderly absolute monarchy became the primary political reform project in Iran during the Naseri period and the early Mozaffari era. This research examines how modern concepts of Orderly absolute monarchy were introduced into Iranian political thought and efforts to align these concepts with Iran's traditional intellectual framework, as a project of advocates for consolidating legal power in the monarchy. Using historical research methodology and relying on causal and rational explanation, this research seeks to answer how thinkers of the Naseri and Mozaffari periods, who were situated in the context of Iran's encounter with modern civilization and observed Iran's state weakness in responding to modern civilization's implications, proposed Orderly absolute monarchy as an alternative to Iran's traditional governance model, in a way that could implement modern state formation and establish a strong state in Iran while accepting the absolute power of the Qajar monarchy. Results and Discussion The ideas that emerged within modern civilization's horizon and upon which the modern state was formed in Europe had become a model for progressive Iranian elites to extract traditional Iran, caught in modern-era conditions, from its weak state status and replace the traditional Iranian governance model with a modern idea. These ideas, with their historical and linguistic foundations formed in Europe, were reflectively adopted by progressive Iranian elites during the Qajar period, disconnected from the referential frameworks of the modern European environment, and entered a new framework governing Iran's traditional horizon, becoming considered by elites as a strategy for forming a modern state in Iran. In the strategy of "Orderly absolute monarchy," top-down reforms were considered the primary basis for transformation and changes toward establishing a modern state. The sovereignty of the independent Qajar monarchy over Iran and the dominance of traditional governance patterns in Qajar statesmen's political mindset on one hand, and the prevalence of traditional intellectual and cultural atmosphere and religious beliefs in Iranian social consciousness on the other hand, led modernist thinkers, who were predominantly in service of the independent Qajar monarchy, to propose a top-down reform model based on the idea of Orderly absolute monarchy, drawing inspiration from political reforms in European and Ottoman monarchical systems. The concept of law constituted the central core of the Orderly monarchy idea. Mirza Malkum Khan first discussed the necessity of law emerging from the modern intellectual horizon in his "Invisible Booklet" and produced various treatises and texts over the years to substantiate his idea. Other thinkers who had realized the necessity of law for administering the evolving society during the Naseri period wrote various treatises to prove such necessity for establishing a strong state in Iran. Although some, unlike Mirza Malkum Khan, did not emphasize the necessity of laws being modern, and some, like Mirza Said Khan Motamen- ol-Molk, believed in deriving laws from Islamic Sharia, they emphasized the fundamental view that laws from the modern horizon were not incompatible with Iranian society's religious beliefs. Some individuals, like Abu-Talib Behbahani, even held that modern laws were consistent with Islamic laws. Conclusion According to the argument presented by advocates of the Orderly monarchy idea, empirical evidence demonstrated that following Iran's entry into the modern civilization, new historical conditions had emerged under which Iran's ancient governance model no longer possessed the capability to confront the new circumstances created by modern civilization. The ancient governance model, centered on maintaining absolute monarchical authority, was capable of fulfilling its primary duty of establishing security through the monarchy's military capability, but in the modern era, progressive Iranian elites observed a governance model in modern states that had achieved progress and advancement through multifaceted reforms based on strategic ideas such as Orderly monarchy, and had imposed their military, political, and economic power on traditional countries like Iran. The formulators of the Orderly absolute monarchy idea, based on insights gained from modern civilization and particularly modern political thought, maintained that the state functions as a system where all its components must perform their duties under specific laws and order, and any deficiency in components and their performance would cause state weakness and inefficiency. In their view, state duties and component functions were determined not by the traditional Iranian governance model but based on the modern governance model. Concepts such as law, justice, and principles like the separation of executive and legislative powers, and financial and physical security of individuals against state power were considered among the most fundamental elements constituting the Orderly absolute monarchy idea. The state, through its enacted laws, was required to guarantee society's justice and security, thereby making national progress possible under the state's commitment to maintaining and establishing state law. |