The role of Rule of law as one of the elements of good governance in Islamic state

Rule of law is a multi aspect, complex and developing theory that during the fluctuation of history from ancient Greece until today have been exposed with variety concept and conceptions. Once it has been defined as the equity before the law and also sometimes it has been introduced against the monarchy. In concept analysis of rule of law the best situation that can be imagined is “achieving to get lowest level of agreement on initial meaning of this term (rule of law instead of monarchy)”, but the conception of this term is more comprehensive and the opportunity of proposing the variety political, philosophy and legal theories by the other components is provided. Totally the conception of rule of law can be divided in formal conception and substantive conception. The most important specialty of formal conception of rule of law is the restricting the authorities of rulers by the law and applying the legality, though the substantive conception of rule of law in addition to above restrictions, requires the law to consider about some substantive specialties. Emphasis on moralities and adjusting the laws with the values such as justice, liberty and democracy is completely obvious in this conception. In this paper with the brief explanation about the history and concept of rule of law we intend to do more precise investigation about the elements of formal conception and substantive conception and what are the differences between these elements. Sovereignty of religious law also means the sovereignty of divine law over the people. This paper intends to survey the relationship between Sovereignty of religious law and rule of law in Islamic state.