Introduction: Hujjat al-Islam wal-Muslimin Dr. Seyyed Ehsan Rafiei Alavi, before being appointed as Vice President of Education and later President of Baqir al-Ulum University, spent years researching the fiqh of natural resources, including the fiqh of oil and gas. In this interview, we discussed fiqh and its role in policy-making for the preservation of natural resources. He believes that the discipline of fiqh can assist policy-making both in defining obligations and prohibitions and in the implementation of rulings. The full text of the exclusive interview with Contemporary Jurisprudence follows:
Contemporary Jurisprudence: Is the discipline of fiqh inherently responsible for policy-making, or is policy-making, at best, a multidisciplinary endeavor in which fiqh is one of the influential disciplines?
Rafiei Alavi: We focus on a specific field known as environmental fiqh. In the realm of human interaction with the environment, one aspect concerns how humans engage with their surroundings. Environmental fiqh establishes norms, obligations, prohibitions, and a normative behavioral model for interacting with the environment. By creating these obligations and prohibitions, fiqh effectively generates policy-making values. In this capacity, fiqh defines the obligations and prohibitions necessary for policy-making, representing the highest level of interaction between the discipline of fiqh and policy-making in the environmental domain.
In this regard, fiqh’s primary role is to articulate the obligations and prohibitions for preserving and interacting with the environment. Its secondary role is to assist in redefining these concepts. Policy-making is a process through which decision-makers, via public institutions, set goals, principles, and strategies to address issues. Fiqh contributes to policy-making through these values, obligations, and prohibitions. In other words, policy-making pursues a goal, purpose, or ideal outcome, which fiqh supports through its obligations and prohibitions. Additionally, fiqh can play a role in the policy-making process itself. To elaborate, policy-making is a process that spans problem identification, implementation, and evaluation. Fiqh can contribute to policy-making both in defining objectives and in shaping the process itself.
Contemporary Jurisprudence: Considering that fiqh directly addresses the rulings of specific matters, while policy-making seeks to establish a clear path for resolving issues through other disciplines, can it be said that policy-making determines the direction of fiqh rather than the other way around?
Rafiei Alavi: In fiqh, we have two dimensions: practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning. In its theoretical dimension, fiqh addresses rulings and subjects as they are. For example, in the fiqh of the environment and natural resources, a key question is whether we are permitted to use public wealth (anfāl). This pertains to obligations and prohibitions. However, in its practical reasoning dimension, fiqh is concerned with implementation. For instance, if the Lawgiver mandates that the use of natural resources must consider public interest and intergenerational justice, we can use policy-making to establish a clear path that supports the theoretical reasoning dimension. The Lawgiver has a substantive dimension that aids in deducing and extracting rulings, as well as a practical reasoning dimension through which Sharia is implemented. Policy-making plays a role in this implementation dimension. Thus, fiqh can be instrumental and effective both in defining obligations and prohibitions and in implementing Sharia.
Contemporary Jurisprudence: Can overarching, mid-level, or specific policies for preserving natural resources be derived from Quranic verses and narrations?
Rafiei Alavi: The question essentially asks whether we can extract general guidelines and overarching policies from Quranic verses and narrations and rely on them for the preservation of natural resources. For example, regarding intergenerational justice, I have the right to use oil. But do my child and my child’s child also have that right?
The overarching policies in fiqh can be categorized into several types: systemic fiqh, which outlines the general framework of Sharia; fiqh of natural resources, which encompasses a set of overarching policies that must be identified; mid-level policies, referred to as “supra-general” principles; and specific policies, known as particular evidence (adillah khāṣṣah). The Lawgiver articulates policies at these three levels. Through the inferences made by jurists from Quranic verses and narrations, which form the basis of jurisprudential evidence, these sources can contribute to policy-making in environmental fiqh across these three levels, ultimately deriving an optimal model.
Contemporary Jurisprudence: What are the essential requirements for optimal policy-making to preserve natural resources?
Rafiei Alavi: The term “essential” (bāyasteh) in fiqh has various meanings. If it refers to obligations and prohibitions, it denotes something necessary and obligatory, akin to a mandatory ruling (wajib). Another meaning is ethical obligation, as opposed to jurisprudential obligation. It seems the intended meaning here is the first. With this clarification, the following essentials can be outlined for optimal policy-making in the fiqh of natural resources:
- The Principle of Islamic Ownership and Sovereignty over Natural Resources: According to Islamic fiqh, public wealth (anfāl) is under the authority of the Islamic government, with the Imam as its custodian.
- The Principle of No Harm (Lā Ḍarar): This means that irreparable harm must not be inflicted on nature and natural resources. Alternatively, this can be expressed as the principle of responsible interaction with natural resources.
- The Principle of Justice: This refers to justice in distribution.
Other principles necessary for optimal policy-making in the fiqh of natural resources include: the prohibition of extravagance (isrāf), the obligation to protect natural resources, and the consideration of both public and private interests.