Party and partisanship, in modern meaning, are new phenomena and, from the jurisprudence point of view, newly-emerged issues in Shī‘a community and culture. In religious thought, there are ambiguities, uncertainties and sometimes varied and even conflicting viewpoints concerning their acceptance or rejection.
In elucidation of partisanship in Islamic thought, it is either attempted to seek for its equivalent in the Qur'an and ḥadīth sources, the sīra of the Infallible Imams and the early history of Islam, or to regard party and partisanship as modern and newly-arisen issues and according to their positive and intellectual functions and due to the concomitance of religious law with intellect, to issue legitimacy license for this modern political phenomenon. Considering these two methodological frameworks – with preference of the second – the present paper first studies the status of party and partisanship in the Qur'an, and then discusses the viewpoints and arguments of the proponents and opponents of the religious legitimacy of partisanship and endorses the "moderate consent" viewpoint.
Keywords: partisanship, Allah's party, politics, Islamic thought, traditions, religious law, intellect, political jurisprudence, theology.
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