پيش زمينه مفهوم قانون در عصر مشروطه: از مالك الرقابي تا تنظيمات

The Background of the Concept of Law in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: From Absolutist to Regulatory Law

پيدايش مفهوم قانون را در عصر مشروطه بايد حاصل تلاش متفكراني دانست كه سالها پيش از تاريخ رسمي وقوع انقلاب مشروطه (1324ق. / 1285 ش.) به تبيين اين مفهوم همت گماشتند. بنابراين، آگاهي يافتن از بستر ذهني و عيني و نخستين بحث ها و واكاوي ها درباره چيستي قانون در اين خصوص بسيار چشم گشاست. نوشتار حاضر به سير انديشه تحول-خواهي در نظام حاكم پيش از مشروطه تا انقلاب مشروطه، كه در واقع سير پيدايش و تحول مفهوم قانون در انديشه متفكران آن زمان بوده است، مي-پردازد. رسيدن به ايده نظام مشروطه و قانون متناسب با آن يك امر تصادفي نبوده است. وجود سلطنت مطلقه غيرمنظم (مستقل) و مفهوم قانون مالكالرقابي و مطرح شدن سلطنت مطلقه منظم و قانوني كه به مثابه تنظيمات عمل كند، جملگي پيشينه رسيدن به نظام مشروطه و فهم غالب متفكران آن دوره از قانون بود، فهمي كه به نوبه خود متشتت بود و به دگرانديشي‌هايي جدي انجاميد.

Emergence of the concept of law in the Constitutional era should be considered as the result of intellectual endeavours of those thinkers who had striven to explain it long before the official date of the Constitutional Revolution (1906). Therefore, learning about intellectual and objective backgrounds and also about the first discussions and analyses on the nature of law will bear great insights. This paper shall deal with the development of idea of change in the political system in the pre-Constitutional time up to the Constitutional Revolution. This in fact reveals the process of emergence and evolution of the concept of law among the thinker or that era. It was not an accident that people sought a constitutional system and laws appropriate to this system. The existence of an unregulated (independent) absolute monarchy accompanied with an absolute law and then introduction of the idea of a regulated absolute monarchy along with the law as regulations were all background elements that contributed to the rise of a will for a constitutional system which in turn had occupied the mind of the main constitutional thinkers. Law for them was the law of a constitutional system. This understanding went serious changes later on.