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Transparent government based on Nahj al-Balagha and social trust among Muslim citizens


Abbas Ali Rastgar
Rekurd Sarhang Maghdid
Iskandar Muda
Seyed Mehdi Mousavi Davoudi

Abstract

As per the teachings of Islam, social trust involves placing others as the pillars of the Islamic countries, which needs to be maintained. Therefore, any  promise or action that undermines the social trust of the people as a social capital is one of the most important anti-social factors that must be dealt  with. In view of that, Islam is struggling against hypocrisy as an antisocial trend, because it damages social trust when a hypocrite preaches one thing  and does another; in other words, the deeds do not confirm the words. That is why citizens cannot believe and trust in their promises, because such  individuals do not fulfil them at any time. In this context, officials are suggested to respect the principle of transparency in the governance of Islamic  societies in order to improve citizens’ social trust. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the role of transparent governance based on the  teachings of Nahj al-Balagha in creating social trust among 428 Iranian Muslim citizens in 2022. In sum, the results indicated that transparent governance  has a significant positive effect on citizens’ social trust in the officials of Islamic societies, as calculated by structural equation modelling in  Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) (path coefficient = 0.58; t-value = 5.54).


Contribution: This study provided a new insight into the role of transparent  governance in creating and strengthening social trust among the officials  and citizens of Islamic societies, which deserves further attention by governments and researchers.