The works by Baqir al-Sadr contains traditional Shia thoughts, while they also suggest ways Shia could "accommodate modernity". The two major works by him are
Iqtisaduna on
Islamic economics, and
Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy). They were detailed critiques of
Marxism that presented his early ideas on an alternative Islamic form of government. They were critiques of both
socialism and
capitalism. He was subsequently commissioned by the government of Kuwait to assess how that country's oil wealth could be managed in keeping with Islamic principles. This led to a major work on
Islamic banking, which still forms the basis for modern Islamic banks. Using his knowledge of the
Quran and a subject-based approach to
Quranic exegesis, Al-Sadr extracted two concepts from the Holy text in relation to governance: •
khilafat al-insan (Man as heir or trustee of God) and •
shahadat al-anbiya (Prophets as witnesses). Al-Sadr explained that throughout history there have been "...two lines. Man's line and the Prophet's line. The line of Man is the
khalifa (trustee) who inherits the earth from God; the line of the Prophet is the
shahid (witness)". Al-Sadr demonstrated that
khilafa (governance) is "a right given to the whole of humanity" and defined it as an obligation given from God to the human race to "tend the globe and administer human affairs". This was a major advancement of
Islamic political theory. While Al-Sadr identified
khilafa as the obligation and right of the people, he used a broad-based explanation of Quranic verse 5:44 to identify who held the responsibility of
shahada in an Islamic state. First were the Prophets (anbiya'). Second were the Imams who are considered a divine (
rabbani) continuation of the Prophets in this line. The last were the ''marja'iyya
(see
Marja''). While the two functions of
khilafa and
shahada (supervision and witness ) were united during the times of the Prophets, they diverged during
the occultation so that
khilafa returned to the people (
umma) and
shahada to the scholars. Al-Sadr 's practical application of how
khilafa, would be returned to the [Muslim] people in the absence of the twelfth Imam was with the establishment of a democratic system, whereby the people regularly elect their representatives in government: Islamic theory rejects monarchy as well as the various forms of dictatorial government; it also rejects the aristocratic regimes and proposes a form of government, which contains all the positive aspects of the democratic system. He continued to champion this point until his final days:
Lastly, I demand, in the name of all of you and in the name of the values you uphold, to allow the people the opportunity truly to exercise their right in running the affairs of the country by holding elections in which a council representing the ummah (people) could truly emerge. Al-Sadr was executed by
Saddam Hussein in 1980 before he was able to provide any details of the mechanism for the practical application of the
shahada concept in an Islamic state. A few elaborations of
shahada can be found in Al-Sadr's works. In his text
Role of the Shiah Imams in the Reconstruction of Islamic Society, Al-Sadr illustrates the scope and limitations of
shahada by using the example of the third Shi'i Imam,
Hussein ibn Ali (the grandson of Muhammad), who defied
Yazid, the ruler at the time. Al-Sadr explained that Yazid was not simply acting counter to Islamic teachings, as many rulers before and after him had done, but he was distorting the teachings and traditions of Islam and presenting his deviant ideas as representative of Islam itself. This, therefore, is what led Imam Hussein to intervene challenging Yazid in order to restore the true teachings of Islam, and consequently laying down his own life. In Al-Sadr's own words, the ''shahid's
(witness – person performing shahada'' or supervision) duties are "to protect the correct doctrines and to see that deviations do not grow to the extent of threatening the ideology itself".
The Logical Foundations of Induction One notable book that is considered by scholars to be a great achievement of al-Sadr is his book entitled
The Logical Foundations of Induction. This book represents the core of al-Sadr's attempt to give a rational logical foundation for growing knowledge by
inductive means, and ultimately establish a new inductive logic termed by al-Sadr as the "Subjectivist Logic" (), that sets the logical rules for this type of knowledge growth. ==List of works==