Ahmad Vaezi
Preface
The fame of civil society in the present society of Iran has arisen from political election atmosphere and entered politico-social discourse. But history of the civil society goes back to the time of the earliest human governments. As the great philosopher Tabatabaee (Allameh Tabatabaee) states in the honest Koran interpretation “Almizan”, it goes back to the time of the Prophet Noah. However there has been different interpretation of the civil society in different era of the human history. Sometimes it has been taken as logical society; sometimes it has been put against the religious society of church; and sometimes as a society apart from the government or the interval between the government and the people.
But the recent interpretation of civil society refers to a society with limited or reduced government in which the government is accountable to the majority, obedient to the majority will, justifies the right of hidden and free choice, admits multi parties; and freedom of speech, press, religion etc. are emphasized. It finally leads to religious pluralism individualism, utilitarianism, and rationalism adoption.
In addition, the important question of the revolutionary society of Iran is that: what is the relevance of the civil society with our present society? And what are the similarities and differences of a civil society and an Islamic society?
Considering the above essential questions and the need of our society to find a clear answer for it, The Research Center for Islamic Systems (politics section), has undertaken writing this article referring to valuable ideas of honorable scholar Hojatol Islam Vaezi who has studied and analyzed the viewpoints of Islamic and Western scholars studiously.
Therefore the research center for Islamic Systems seize the opportunity to respect him and hope that the book is useful for the young thinkers and opens horizons of intellectuality to them.
