Note: Dr. Mahmud Hekmatnia is clearly known for his accent. The full professor of the Research Institute of Islamic Culture and Thought, but in addition to the directness of his accent, he is also considered one of the top lawyers of the country. He himself says that the things he says on the sidelines of his discussions are more important than the main contents of his lessons and conversations. We talked with him about the role of contemporary knowledge in jurisprudence. He believes that the problem of jurisprudence in using other knowledges is due to its lagging behind these knowledges. The details of the conversation with this faculty and university professor are as follows:

Is it possible to use the results of non-Islamic sciences, such as medicine, psychology, astronomy, etc. Is it correct to discover the Islamic ruling?

Mr. Hekmatnia: This is a general question. Basically, it must be seen in the inference process, what is the device from which the ruling is obtained? Shari’ah must be a ruling, not a device; Thus, this ruling must be seen and asked, from which knowledge system does it come out? For instance, medical knowledge does not imply a must; Rather, it simply expresses behavioral norms. The subject of these norms is also things like surgery and cloning and artificial insemination and the like. We must look for some must-haves in ethics, that is, does a certain action have moral justification or not? Or, for instance, in the knowledge of engineering, which is the knowledge of product design, is it morally permissible to use this product that was produced and increased human power?

The knowledge from which the so-called normative verdict is obtained has two levels: one level has philosophical discussion, which is actually the philosophy of ethics, and the other level is the knowledge of ethics.

None of these rulings that we say are for the essence of the matter; That is, the essence of the environment does not have a norm by itself; Rather, the application of ethical theory in the environment includes the norm.Therefore, two questions must be asked:

Is it correct to use the basic norms that we have in moral theories?

Assuming that it has a level of correctness, when it is applied to these subjects and norms of knowledge, will the result be useful for jurisprudence or not?

In the field of norms, we should separate two debates. One is how we infer and reason about basic norms, and the other is how we apply them; Because philosophy is not supposed to have a plurality of debates, its rulings are specific, definite and limited. For instance, the goodness of justice and the ugliness of injustice have a basic concept, and until they are clarified, it is not possible to judge its goodness and ugliness. Until these two devices are identified, its development and application will be pointless.

Therefore, in other words, we have three devices: 1. The logic of inferring basic rules, 2. The logic of transverse development of rules, 3. The logic of applying the rules. With these three devices, you can achieve the desired result. Discussions such as the introduction is obligatory, it is obligatory, al-Amr bil shay’ yaqtadi nahi an diddah. These are all lateral developments taken from philosophy. That is, the debate is that if we have a basic ruling, can we intellectually develop it from the point of view of Shari’ah? Therefore, in fact, their logic is the logic of development.

In the field of reason, our jurists have not worked at all and have considered rational propositions as assumptions; That is, the question they had in the field of reason was whether the understanding of reason (assuming that it understands the ruling) requires the will of the Shari’ah and the ruling of the Shari’ah or not? Everything ruled by reason is ruled by Shari’ah. But they didn’t ask the question, what does hakama behi al-aql mean? In the end, they discussed the merits and demerits of Ash’ari and Mu’tazili. Does this mind not have a method? Does it have no basis? Does it not have a mental device? This is while the knowledge works in that first part.

The question is whether the system from which the judgment of reason is deduced is authentic or not? Or does reason apply to it at all or not?

Mr. Hekmatnia: You took the discussion to the device again. I think that what needs to happen is that our intellectual apparatus needs to go backwards; That is, when we discuss non-textual propositions today, we must raise the question of where these non-textual propositions come from? Check the device. After it was obtained, in terms of the basic and development rules, we also agreed on its rules; That is, the obligatory introduction and gathering of exceptions, etc., are the same in all systems. What remains is the intellectual apparatus. Regarding the intellectual system, there are two serious questions: how do we understand the sources of understanding and what is the method of understanding?

Another issue is understanding the criteria. We do not understand the criteria in intellectual matters such as justice. In the discussion of deserving reward and punishment, it is very important that what matters are involved and what matters are not involved. On the other hand, we have matters that are likely to be involved, and it must be seen which of them is involved in the verdict?

For instance, the issue of transgenics is the criterion of harm, and the debate is whether these products harm the body or not? For this, our empirical knowledge is not enough; But it is possible that there is something that we do not understand, and for that possibility, the rule of caution is laid down and a solution is provided for it. In human empirical knowledge, in the field of justice and the use of nature, there are common rules that are harmful. In the field of using nature, it has been said that “the creation of our entire earth.”Effective or ineffective statements can be used for us. As a result, the basic propositions muust be examined in terms of effectiveness and ineffectiveness in order to understand how much of them can be used and according to these theories, how much we can use those theories by referring to religious texts and determine its effective and ineffective factors in terms of let’s calculate Shari’ah proofs.

Scientific propositions are important in science; But it is not important in jurisprudence. For example, a certain reptile is on the verge of extinction, and in that knowledge it seems very necessary to preserve it; But isn’t that the case in jurisprudence? What should be done to solve these differences?

Mr. Hekmatnia: Our jurisprudence is 300 years behind in the field of technology and industry. I say with calculation; That is, almost from the beginning of the 18th century onwards, this backwardness has started. I Makasab of Sheikh Ansari, which was written at that time, does not have a word about the issues of that time. That is, Sheikh Ansari was not aware of that issue at all. Of course, he has worked very hard; But it ended up being a nosy deal because there was a discussion about this; But the inventions and innovations and intellectual property that started 100 years before Sheikh Ansari (Sheikh Ansari died in 1876) are not visible in this book. No traces of the sciences and technologies of that period can be seen in Sheikh Ansari’s books.

While this normative knowledge that examines these issues goes back to 3, 4 basic rules, one of which is prohibition of harm. This is a topic. Another issue is that the issues are dynamic and we need to see what the future of those issues will be. This is also because today, for example, we realized that our actions can be very harmful for future generations. Well, with this issue, both Western moral systems have a problem and we have a problem; Therefore, we can also use their findings and solutions. For example, intergenerational justice is a complex philosophical debate that both they and we are involved in. So, why don’t we use their research in these topics?

Solving these issues and differences is an aspect related to social management. For example, in the field of facing oppression, what have been the tools in the past? It was carnal tools, it was the advice of God, it was commandment, it was guidance, etc. But now they say that in order to deal with oppression, let’s divide the power and let the powers be supervised by the powers, and they put forward the theory of the government. The basis of the separation of powers was to come and stop oppression. They came and said that in terms of political power, sovereignty and sovereign powers are the highest power and there is nothing higher than that, so monitoring from above has no meaning. On the other hand, monitoring from below is not effective either, so let’s divide the forces. This is a model and it has been an efficiency model. So you have the prohibition of cruelty and they also have and they have used new tools for that.

I believe that neither the Islamic civilization has grown nor the jurists, but the Islamic civilization found an inherent narrowness for it and did not advance. Islamic civilization was ahead as long as Islamic civilization worked in the field of knowledge; But when the concept of construction was raised in civilizations, we remained in the knowledge. We all wanted to study philosophy, so we couldn’t offer technology. We could not provide ethics based on technology, we took these and gave them to the West. We resist a lot, we say that these are manifestations of Western civilization and we don’t take from them. When we take it, we remember that this technology has ethics and behavior. We leave these.

Perhaps it can be said that the past behaviors of the West have caused a lack of trust on the part of Islamic governments towards them. How do you evaluate this point?

Hekmatnia: This statement is not completely true and it is not completely wrong either. The world is a world of competition and the principle of competition rules everywhere, which means that these things cannot be hidden. For example, someone betrays or deceives and others do not understand. It is not like to think that the world is a small village where all of them are sitting and researching day and night to destroy Iran. We have had an illusion that the whole world has lost its technology and missiles and said that there is one Iran with 85 million and we all have to gather to destroy it. This is an illusion.

In my opinion, this mistrust is due to ignorance; It means we don’t know what is going on in the world. Our researchers don’t know English, they don’t travel abroad, and they don’t debate with anyone. They are like a prisoner who sees little things from the outside and analyzes them. Most of those who analyze in this way did not go to a conference and talk with Western scientists.

This article is part of the file “New Evidence in Contemporary Jurisprudence” and will be prepared and published in collaboration with Ijtihad Network.