Causal Layered Analysis of Good Governance in Islamic Utopia

Since ancient times, humankind has aspired to create an ideal society and live in an environment free of problems and difficulties, a utopia with high levels of excellence, bringing him happiness and satisfaction. Great western philosophers and eminent oriental sages have articulated their ideas and revealed their dreams about the characteristics of people and traits of governors of such ideal places.Nowadays, governance is considered the main custodian of the social order and responsible for the comfort and satisfaction of citizens; so that bad governance is being increasingly regarded as one of the root causes of all evil within our societies while good governance is deemed the origin of public prosperity. Recently, some international institutions such as the UN and the World Bank and also several scholars have presented various definitions, models and theories about the concept of good governance and its attributes.The present study makes an attempt to employ a new approach to explore the requirements of good governance in the religious perspective of Ali ibn Abi Talib as the first Imam of Shia muslims. Therefore, the causal layered analysis (CLA) as a futuristic method has been applied to investigate letter 53 of the Nahj al-Balagha containing his orders to Malik al-Ashtar and finally the results have been presented and discussed at different analysis levels.