The Semantic Study of Citizenship Rights in Nahj ul-Balagha

“Citizenship rights” is considered as one of the new political concepts, but the background of its present and dominant perception goes back to the last few centuries. This idea has been formulated in the context of the modern western semantic system and denotes the rights that belong to the man due to his social and political identity as the citizen of a political society. However, the relationship of the individual inhabitants in a land as the members of a political society with one another and with the established state as well as their rights is a long-standing issue. In spite of the difference in ontology and anthropology of the modern era – on whose basis the modern idea of citizenship has emerged – considering rights for the members of a society has a record in the teachings of the divine religions, especially Islam. The zenith of this humanistic view (not a human-centered one) can be observed in the way of life of Imam Ali as the desirable Islamic ruler. The present article attempts to make use of the semantic method to shed light, as far as it can, on citizenship rights – as a new concept – in Nahj ul-Balāgha. Thus, by pursuing the vocabularies – from the text of Nahj ul-Balāgha – which are in the semantic filed of this research subject, i.e. citizenship, we investigate the related denotations based on the three well-known concepts of civil rights, political rights and social rights as well as their instances.

Keywords:

Imam Ali , citizenship rights , semantics , modern political concepts , Nahj ul-Balāgha