Hawzah News Agency- In 2016, Americans elected a reality TV star with zero political experience to run the world's most powerful nation. Around the same time, Brexit happened because of a referendum campaign built on lies that anyone could fact-check in five minutes. Social media algorithms now swing elections by feeding people whatever keeps them scrolling, truth be damned.
Watching all this unfold, you can't help but wonder: maybe the ancient philosophers were onto something when they questioned whether popularity contests are the best way to pick leaders. It's a question that's been bugging political thinkers for thousands of years - from the chatty philosophers of ancient Athens to the scholarly clerics studying in Qom's seminaries. And here's the thing: despite being separated by over two millennia and completely different worlds, both Greek philosophy and Islamic political theory ended up with surprisingly similar answers. They both said that real leadership should go to people who actually know what they're doing and have the moral backbone to do it right, not just whoever can work a crowd or promise the moon.
This piece looks at how the Islamic idea of Wilayat-e-Faqih (basically, rule by a qualified religious scholar) stacks up against what Socrates and Plato had to say about leadership. Through this comparison, we'll see how both traditions basically told democracy "hold up - maybe there's more to legitimate rule than just counting votes." ...
Article:
"Wilayat-e-Faqih and the Greek Ideal: An Islamic Answer to the Philosopher King" by Sayed Ali Hussaini
Both Islamic political theory and classical Greek philosophy challenge a basic assumption of modern democratic thinking: that democratic procedures alone are enough to create legitimate authority. Instead, they insist that real political legitimacy has to be grounded in wisdom, virtue, and commitment to principles that go beyond immediate popular desires or electoral calculations.
21:41 - 2025/08/07
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