Note: The book Educational Jurisprudence is the result of hours of teaching by Professor A’rafi, which in past years in the seminary in his advanced jurisprudence lesson he has addressed this category. What is education? Is human educable or religiously educable? What are educational criteria? Can jurisprudential criteria be effective in human education? Such questions and the author’s answers to these questions can be found in this book. Below is a brief report of the book’s content:
In this writing, which is a report from the books of educational jurisprudence, you will read that Sharia and its practical dimension, meaning jurisprudence, has a special position in human life and is a collection of oughts and ought nots. Jurisprudence and education also play an important role in the life of every Muslim human and comprehensive education and nurturing is one of his basic needs. Human in the light of correct education will reach perfection. These two topics with the progress of human life and cultural and social transformations have taken a new form and found a new mission. Designing Islamic education and organizing the Islamic educational system has been a long-standing concern of caring and committed specialists in the field of education, which twenty years ago was formed by Ayatollah Alireza A’rafi and entered scholarly assemblies. This book is the result of part of the series of “fiqh al-tarbiyah” discussions that were delivered in the form of his advanced jurisprudence lesson. Participants in this lesson were accomplished and seasoned seminarians who mostly had academic study and research in educational sciences. For this purpose, a summary of the mentioned book’s discussions is presented.
Author’s Biography
Ayatollah A’rafi was born in 1338 [1959-1960] in the city of Meybod in Yazd province. His father Mohammad Ebrahim A’rafi was one of the clerics of Meybod and a close friend of the great leader of the revolution. He entered the seminary in his teenage years and in a short time attended advanced jurisprudence and principles lessons of the seminary’s greats and benefited from them. He has the honor of being a student of professors like Ayatollah Uzma Fazel Lankarani (may his soul be sanctified), Ayatollah Uzma Haj Shaykh Mortaza Haeri (may his soul be sanctified), Ayatollah Uzma Vahid Khorasani (may his blessings continue), and Ayatollah Uzma Javad Tabrizi (may his soul be sanctified).
Among his revolutionary activities, one can mention fighting against the tyrant and fighting in the battlefronts against Ba’ath. He has been appointed for some time to the Friday imamate of the holy city of Qom, manager of the country’s seminaries, Jamiat al-Mustafa al-Alamiyyah, Friday imamate of Meybod county (Yazd province), member of the Assembly of Experts of Leadership, and membership in the Guardian Council and has provided valuable services for the country and people.
Alireza A’rafi has numerous works, some written by him and others resulting from transcribing speeches and teaching in seminary and university circles. The Ishraq and Irfan Institute belongs to him and publishes his works. The educational jurisprudence collection in various titles is the result of much effort in this institute. Among his other works, one can mention the book Child Education, Educational Conduct of the Prophet and Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), the book Views of Muslim Scholars in Education and Its Foundations. He has emphasized guardianship of the jurist and considers safeguarding divine and human values among the most important. Respect for religious democracy and law and people’s vote, addressing social disorders like unemployment and inflation, and observing Islamic ethics and manners in the political arena and … are among his other political and social foundations and concerns.
Book’s Issue
The main issue of the book is examining the possibility of connection and interaction between the two sciences of “jurisprudence” and “education” and the necessity of creating an interdisciplinary knowledge or a new jurisprudential chapter called “educational jurisprudence”; and examining the position, duties, issues, and prospects of “educational jurisprudence” discussions and proposing the Islamic educational system.
Book’s Structure and Content Report
The book includes a preface and four chapters. The preface is an overall outline of changes and transformations in the seminary and expansion of human sciences in it, especially educational sciences and their connection with seminary sciences have been considered. This section has stated the purpose of establishing educational jurisprudence as the precedence of educational jurisprudence for building foundations of Islamic educational sciences and also producing theory in the field of Islamic education.
The first chapter discusses the definition of jurisprudence, jurisprudence’s topic (voluntary behaviors of the obligated), and jurisprudence’s predicate (divine legislation for regulating human life); and ultimately defines jurisprudence as “a knowledge about the voluntary behavior of the obligated from the aspect of its attribution to one of the five rulings.”
The second chapter discusses the following:
Lexical definition of education; technical definition of education as “creating gradual change and blossoming the educand’s talents in mental, spiritual, and physical dimensions of personality and behavior by the educator”; expressing education’s divisions; explaining the educational system including foundations, goals, principles, and methods; defining educational sciences as “a knowledge responsible for research and study in the education process and its topic is the teaching-learning process”; relation of education and similar concepts, like “teaching” which is inside education, “propagation” which due to being transient is outside education, “discipline” which is inside education, “ethics” which due to education’s transformative nature is outside education.
The third chapter discusses sciences’ relations, jurisprudence and education relation, education’s influence on jurisprudence and vice versa, and educational sciences’ influence on jurisprudence and vice versa. Ultimately, it has also stated that “education” due to the existence of external flow in several areas “expanding jurisprudence’s scope,” “educational system-building,” and “providing educational analysis” influences “jurisprudence”; and itself, as a new topic for jurisprudence science, in arenas of influence on foundations, goals, principles, methods, dimensions, pillars, and stages of jurisprudence science, receives influence from jurisprudential statements.
It has also considered educational sciences’ influences – the knowledge responsible for this flow – on “jurisprudence” examinable in three scopes “proposing new topics,” “recognizing topics,” and “proposing new methods.” In contrast, it also expresses “jurisprudence’s” role on “educational sciences” in cases of direction-giving, limitation and regulation, proposing new methods and principles, and creating issues for research. Based on such deep and close relation between jurisprudence and education and jurisprudence and educational sciences, the necessity of cooperation between these two disciplines and establishing an interdisciplinary knowledge or creating a new chapter and book in current jurisprudence becomes apparent.
The fourth chapter addresses introducing the concept of “educational jurisprudence” and the scope of its horizons; and through reviewing models presented for classifying jurisprudence and examining the background of categorizing jurisprudential discussions, ultimately discusses the position of “educational jurisprudence” in current jurisprudence and in the Islamic knowledge system. This book in continuation mentions that from the interaction and confrontation of the two knowledges of jurisprudence and education, a new chapter emerges in jurisprudence. This new chapter can encompass a wide range of educational discussions like teaching, learning, education, and their factors and obstacles. It can also include achievements of various educational sciences branches like educational management, curriculum planning, educational technology, and…. All these cases, inasmuch as they are in the position of education and influence and being influenced and inasmuch as they are behaviors from the obligated’s voluntary behaviors, are taken in the topic of “educational jurisprudence” and determining their ruling is also the duty of the jurist.
Ultimately, the respected author has defined “educational jurisprudence” as follows: a knowledge that discusses voluntary behaviors issued from educators and educands in the position of education from the aspect of their attribution to one of the five rulings. In continuation, educational jurisprudence discussions are addressed in more detail.
This thirty-volume collection has housed various titles in the field of educational jurisprudence, of which fourteen volumes have so far been written by the institute’s authors and printed. In these thirty volumes, you can see various titles like: (Rules of Educational Jurisprudence, Teaching and Learning Quran and Hadith, Teaching and Learning Science and Religion, Teaching and Learning Rational Sciences and Knowledge, Teaching and Learning Intuitive Sciences and Knowledge, Teaching and Learning Experimental Sciences, Occult Sciences and Skills and Occupations, Duties of the Institution of Religious Scholars and Elites in Education, Specific Manners of Learning, Common Manners of Teaching and Learning, Ethical-Personality Qualifications of Teaching, General Principles of Education, Physical Education, Rational Education, Doctrinal Education, Worship Education, Ethical Education, Sexual Education, Social, Political Education, Economic, Technical, and Artistic Education, Duties of the Family Institution in Education, Teaching Methods and Techniques, Duties of the Government Institution in Education, General Education Methods, Duties of Educational Centers Institution in Education, Duties of the General Public and Obligated Institution). The volumes of this collection are now available in the specialized library of the House of Ethics Researchers in Qom.
As it appears from this book, the respected author believes “educational jurisprudence” is not a discussion added to existing jurisprudence, but collecting scattered contents of this topic from jurisprudential sources and texts. He says in an interview with Ma’rifat magazine:
“Fiqh al-tarbiyah, although it may be considered a new title, but its roots exist in traditional and common jurisprudence; for example, discussions about teaching sciences, types of sciences, and the like raised in makasib muharama are in fact part of fiqh al-tarbiyah and for this reason, one cannot say fiqh al-tarbiyah is a completely new jurisprudential topic, but this topic has always existed in human life and parts of it have been discussed in jurisprudence; but because generally these discussions did not have independent determination and specification, we did not have a book on education or fiqh al-tarbiyah. On the other hand, because mostly these issues were addressed in ethics science, the necessity of this chapter in jurisprudence was not felt.”
It seems that despite commonalities between the two sciences of jurisprudence and education in topic (human actions and behaviors), goal (movement toward perfection), domain (all stages of human life), issues, and nature (being applied), differences like difference in foundations, goals, methods, and foundations highlight the necessity of compiling more complete jurisprudential principles; which these jurisprudential principles must be taken from current usul al-fiqh and specific usuli discussions of educational jurisprudence.