Majority vote: Difference between revisions

Majority vote (in English: Majority vote and in Arabic: أغلبية الأصوات) is defined as the opinion, view, thought, idea, belief, and deliberation of most individuals in a group, organization, institution, or the people of a country who share common characteristics in terms of language, religion, race, etc.<ref>Dehkhoda, *Loghatnameh-ye Dehkhoda*, under "Ra'y" and "Aksariyat"; Amid, *Farhang-e Farsi-ye Amid*, under "Ra'y" and "Aksariyat"; Anvari, *Farhang-e Bozorg-e Sokhan*, under the words "Ra'y" and "Aksariyat".</ref> The terms majority and minority refer to the quantity and number of groups without considering their quality. In Islamic teachings, the term minority has been used to refer to the People of the Book as opposed to the Muslim majority; but today, these two terms are mostly used in political competitions and legislative processes. Groups and individuals who gain the support of half plus one of the citizens are called the absolute majority, and their rivals are called the absolute minority. However, it is usually difficult to obtain an absolute majority, for which reason scholars have introduced the term relative majority, which means the largest unit of a group, regardless of whether it is more than half or not.<ref>Salehi, *Demokrasi va E'tebar-e Ra'y-e Aksariyat dar Islam*, 2005, p. 61.</ref>

In contemporary jurisprudential books, especially those that deal with issues of governance in Islam and the [[Wilayat al-Faqih|issue of Wilayat al-Faqih]], sections have been dedicated to the issue of the majority vote. One of the first works that has substantiated the position of the majority vote based on religious teachings is the book [[Tanbih al-Ummah wa Tanzih al-Millah]] by [[Mohammad-Hossein Gharavi Na'ini]]. In the first volume of the book [[Dirasat fi Wilayat al-Faqih wa Fiqh al-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah]] by [[Hussein-Ali Montazeri]], there are also references to this discussion.