What is the jurisprudence of citizenship rights and what are its requirements?

In recent years, a title has been found in the researches, which can be called additional jurisprudence. In fact, jurisprudence is added to a series of titles, such as family jurisprudence, religious jurisprudence and judicial jurisprudence. Jurisprudence of citizenship rights is also one of these. At the same time, although those added jurisprudences are new; But its topics and contents are not new and have been in traditional and ancient jurisprudence; But now they want to put them together, find a series of commonalities and roots from it and deal with it. The jurisprudence of citizenship rights is new in two ways, that is, both this coherence and these issues themselves. That is, we do not have a place in traditional jurisprudence as citizenship rights to put these together and take them out of jurisprudence. Also, the jurisprudence issues of citizenship rights are new, and perhaps a small percentage of them are in traditional jurisprudence, and most of its content should be gathered in new studies conducted in the fields of law.

Thus, jurisprudence of citizenship rights is a title that is added to a section of jurisprudence and issues as additional jurisprudence. In the extras that exist in jurisprudence, most of the business is extraction and coherence; But here the task is more difficult and we don’t have the issues themselves in common and existing jurisprudence except for a small percentage; Thus, we have to solve the problems with the help of new studies that have been done in the West or in the fields of legal and academic studies.

Professor Mahdi Mehrizi, a member of the Council of Contemporary Jurisprudence Research Institute

Thus, we can use the areas and fields of new university and western studies in the jurisprudence of citizenship rights, due to the lack of its issues in common and traditional jurisprudence, and since these topics are new there too, these new studies should be extracted and explored first. And then he studied, debated and do ijtihad about the way of communicating, understanding the verdict and deriving its rules.

The issues raised in the jurisprudence of citizenship rights can be compared to today’s life, where issues such as the type of education, type of residence, such as the type of living in an apartment, transportation issues, housing, and the political presence of people are discussed. In the discussion of the political presence of individuals, a Zoroastrians representative became a member of the Yazd City Council; But there was a debate for a long time whether this person can be a member of the city council or not? Also, the new world has created new issues for urban life and new life, which many examples can be mentioned. With the jurisprudence of citizenship rights, we want to deal with these issues in order to see what is its judicial and legal nature from the point of view of jurisprudence.

In general, what are the foundations and presuppositions of citizenship rights jurisprudence?

The most important basis or presupposition of citizenship rights, with the word that it has in it, is that we accept human beings “as human beings” as a truth. The first principle of it is the belief in “man shall be human”; It means to consider a human being free from all those social, political, religious and belief constraints; Adam is because he is Adam and not because he is Muslim and not because he is Iranian and his language is Persian. Let’s consider him free from all these belongings and consider his needs in different fields. Its most important basis is that we believe that humans are humans and that they have rights. Otherwise, if someone does not accept this or accepts a part of it, the discussion of citizenship rights can be raised to the same extent.

In other words, if we want to talk about religious literature, the most important basis for it is the sentence of Nahj al-Balagha in which lmam Ali says: “People and society and those who live are either your religious brothers or your human counterparts.” If we accept and believe this equivalent of humanity and being human, the discussion of citizenship rights will be formed.

Thus, the most important basis and presupposition is to believe in human beings as human beings, free from all religious, cultural, social, political, Muslim and non-Muslim race constraints. In the future, we should also seek to provide those human needs in the field of law and legislation. In my opinion, this is the most important principle, basis and premise for jurisprudence and citizenship rights.

If we believe in jurisprudence and accept that jurisprudence covers a small circle, then dealing with the jurisprudence of citizenship rights will be minimized. Therefore, the more we see the circle of jurisprudence, the wider this category becomes, but its circle is very small.

Regarding minimal jurisprudence, it becomes clear that many of these issues are rational issues; Because it is not necessary to consider them from the point of view of a jurist and with special foundations, these are issues that whatever the intellectuals of the world arrive at, we can use them as a basis for action. Finally, in the field of citizen jurisprudence, which is a completely rational matter, we can get some ideas from religion, which mostly have negative and not positive aspects. But the rest of it is what they arrived at rationally.

In fact, we must say that the ideas that govern the issues of citizenship rights are part of it, the religious dimension, and the rest is what they rationally proposed in the world; For instance, how must education be? How must students study? How many sections must it be? You must not take these from jurisprudence. Wisely, in some places, they recognize that our education is two-stage, three-stage, etc. In fact, a large part of these are issues that the intellectuals of the world themselves decide and talk about; Thus, if we believe in minimal jurisprudence, the discussion of our citizenship rights will be minimized, but we can believe that minimal jurisprudence is religious ideas that determine red lines so that they are not crossed rationally.

We have a series of certainties in religion, which are red lines in the field of legal issues, beliefs and ethics, and must be observed and not exceeded, and wherever rational issues exceed it, it is not acceptable, like usury. Transactions are a rational matter and are bought and sold everywhere in the world; But we infer some red lines from religion that if it is riba (usury) , that trade is haram. We actually get “no’s” from religious teachings. Its benefits are provided by human intellectuals, legislators and jurists.

The existing jurisprudence is what we have now, and it can limit citizenship rights in three places. One of those issues is related to non-Muslims. For instance, you say that an infidel is impure, you cannot marry an infidel, or if an infidel slaughters an animal, it is not clean. Thus, what you say in the circle of citizenship rights creates limitations. The second area is non-Shi’ah issues. In jurisprudence and in some jurisprudential fatwas, we have materials about non-Shi’ah; For instance, it is sometimes said that non-Shi’ah absenteeism is permissible for a Muslim, etc. Well, this is where your citizenship rights are limited. The third field of gender issues is women’s issues. If you have issues related to women in common jurisprudence, there will be restrictions. In my opinion, if we want to deal with jurisprudence and citizenship rights in three areas based on traditional and popular jurisprudence, we have serious limitations that are effective; The area of non-Muslims, the area of non-Shiites and the area of gender issues.

Thus, to the extent that you accept these restrictions in traditional and popular jurisprudence, your citizenship rights will be limited. No matter how much your jurisprudence is out of traditional inferences; Like the new religious thinkers who have newer fatwas and more open ideas in these fields, if they want to deal with jurisprudence and citizenship rights, the output will be wider and wider. Thus, the existing jurisprudence is seriously influential in its way of looking at human beings to deal with citizenship rights, and this intersection, this conflict, and this conflict can be found in three major areas and arenas. Non-Muslims, non-co-religionists and gender issues related to women’s issues. It is possible that other cases will be found; But most of it is in these three areas. In these three places, to the extent that you adhere to common jurisprudence, you are dependent, and the more new inferences you have there, the more freely and openly you can make inferences and ijtihad here.

This conversation is a part of the electronic magazine “Fiqh Principles of Citizen Rights” which was produced in collaboration with the Ijtihad Network website.