The person occupying the presidential post must have...

The person occupying the presidential post must have outstanding knowledge and familiarity with law, and the ideal and best person assuming such a responsibility will be the one with the utmost knowledge of law. 2.

Moral excellence In addition to knowledge of law, the implementer as well as all officials and administrators must also possess distinctive moral excellence so that they do not misuse the posts and facilities at their disposal, with personal and factional motives prompting them to transgress the bounds of their responsibilities.

A person may be well-versed in law but once its implementation is inconsistent with his interests, he might be ready to violate it just for the sake of protecting his interests. There are many examples of such violations by executives and politicians of different countries. It is often read in newspapers around the world that the president of a given country is condemned to some years of imprisonment for financial corruption, or a certain minister or head is convicted by court.

The reason is that they do not have enough piety and moral excellence to prefer public interests to their own. Hence, they violate the law. So, the second qualification of the implementer of law is possession of moral excellence, which is likewise known as a level of God-wariness [ taqwa ], so that he can resist caprice, desire and personal or factional interests and steadfastly support the truth. 3.

Managerial skill and experience A person may be well-versed in law, pious and of good morality, but not have sufficient skill and the necessary acumen to implement the law, and in practice does not know the actual application of law and manner of implementing it. For this reason, those who are in charge of affairs are religiously forbidden to entrust responsibilities to those who do not have the required skill, experience and efficiency in discharging their duty.

So, for an administrator to give a satisfactory and desirable performance, this qualification must be considered in selecting him. In Islam, as in all political systems these three qualifications are emphasized while choosing administrators and executives, but the second qualification, i.e. God-wariness and moral excellence is particularly emphasized. In other political systems in the world the stress is more on the other two conditions and less on the administrators’ piety and sense of justice.