The seminary is like a land that needs to be planned. You must know, in a systematic process, with continuous monitoring and recognition of the seminary forces, what wealth you have and with what plan this wealth can be processed and put in the most effective and efficient state for producing a product. If this planning is done accurately, the product that is produced with this wealth will be a popular product and there will be no challenge from the user of the fatwa. In my opinion, this territorial planning has not been done on a land called the seminary and its capitals, and it is not going to be done.

Note: If we do not say that the challenges of the jurisprudence of art are greater than the challenges of other emerging jurisprudences, we have not said too much. The impact and scope of the subject of art is such that every fatwa in this category is met with a lot of social feedback. Therefore, it seems that one of the most important tasks that must be done in this newly emerging and extremely important jurisprudence is to examine the challenges facing research, research management, and ifta’ in this jurisprudence. For this reason, we spoke with Hujjat lslam wa al-Muslimin Muh. Ashayeri Munfared, a member of the faculty of Jami’at al-Mustafa in Qum. He has been involved in art jurisprudence for many years and has several articles in this field, and he was deeply concerned about the process of research, research management, and ifta in artistic subjects. The details of this frank and interesting conversation of this teacher and researcher at the Qum Seminary are as follows:

What are the challenges of art jurisprudence researchers in the field of resources?

Mr. Ashayeri: The existing libraries are not sufficient, although good steps have been taken and good work has been done. Especially in the issue of art, theoretical discussions of art, the nature of art, some discussions of the philosophy of art and even the discussion of communication, good discussions have been held; but the books should be updated and new works, sources and books should be added to them. Another important source that should be discussed in the discussion of art sources is istifta’ and fatwa, in which many issues have either not been presented or, if presented, have not been answered.

What are the challenges for researchers of art jurisprudence, in terms of evidence, principles and rules?

Mr. Ashayeri: Another important methodological challenge we face in the field of foundations and evidence is that we neither fully understand nor use interdisciplinary studies. The reality is that interdisciplinary studies are studies in which a group of two or more experts enter an interdisciplinary field to change the understanding of an issue and influence hypotheses; but we do not have much success in these matters. When I am going to discuss, for example, the representation of the innocent face in cinema and the representation of sacred concepts such as the Qur’an in cinema in general, what understanding do I have of representation? Do I know the theories of representation? If the theories of representation from the jurisprudence of communication are not placed alongside the perspectives, methods, and jurisprudential foundations, is there any benefit? Do we understand the issues of form and content? What understanding do we have of the issues? If these understandings really change as a result of the collective participation of researchers from different fields in a single issue and these researchers influence each other, an effective interdisciplinary work will be created without which we cannot understand the complexity of the issues; therefore, this is also one of our problems that we either do not do interdisciplinary work or do not do effective interdisciplinary work. This causes art-related research to move away from real problems and real solutions to problems.

What are the challenges for art jurisprudence researchers for the effectiveness of fatwas in the social arena?

Mr. Ashayeri: First, let me make a point that our jurisprudence has a brilliant history in focusing on the effectiveness and consequences of fatwas. Both in the evidence and in the jurisprudence arising from that evidence, there is a serious issue that jurisprudence is not indifferent to the consequences of a fatwa and the effects that a fatwa will later create. In the evidence for prohibiting mut’ah marriage, we have that the Ahl al-Bayt (‘a) forbade some of their disciples from mut’ah marriage, arguing that if you perform such a marriage when you do not need it, it will cause your wives to dislike us, who permitted mut’ah marriage, and dislike of the Imam leads to disbelief, so do not do this; that is, mut’ah marriage that leads to the permanent wife becoming a disbeliever is prohibited.

In our evidence, in the rulings that ultimately lead to harm or inconvenience, the result has been seen in advance and these harmful and troublesome rulings have been removed. This is our jurisprudential view. Even beyond this, we have many cases in our jurisprudence where the jurist sees the necessity of evidence to issue a fatwa; but he feels that if he issues a fatwa, it will cause the user of the fatwa to become obsessive; therefore, by paying attention to this consequence, he prevents the necessity of evidence with the same concern; that is, the jurisprudents have paid attention to the effectiveness of the fatwa to this extent.

In other words, the jurist did not want to look at the necessity of evidence and just issue a fatwa according to the necessity of evidence without any consideration of what the consequences of this fatwa will be. This is the general situation of our jurisprudence; but regarding the jurisprudence of art, it seems that if we want to have a jurist who really issues a fatwa about art and his fatwa is also an effective fatwa, the first condition is that the jurist and the user of the fatwa have a common understanding of the issue. If this common understanding does not exist, this fatwa will not be considered and trusted by the users of the fatwa.

Another point that can help the effectiveness of a fatwa is the jurist and the person subject to it having a common understanding of the necessity of that art. If a jurist really does not accept the necessity of a championship sport, not just an art, at all, he may issue a fatwa prohibiting it with the slightest corruption; but if he is aware of the necessities, he may not issue a fatwa prohibiting it even if that championship sport has corruption; therefore, the jurist must understand it to the extent that the person subject to it understands it as much as the person subject to it or in proportion to the person subject to it.

The third point that can be raised as a challenge in the discussion of effectiveness is that the fatwa is the real problem of the subject. Sometimes we practice jurisprudence and issue a fatwa about something that is not at all a problem of the subject. If the issue that the jurist addresses is the real problem of the subject and the jurist’s understanding of the essence of that art is also in proportion to the understanding of the person subject to the fatwa, the challenges to the fatwa are minimized.

What are the challenges of research management in the field of art jurisprudence?

Mr. Ashayeri: The challenges of research management in the field of art jurisprudence are the same as the challenges of research management in other fields, and there is no difference. It seems that one of the reasons why we are not sufficiently focused on solving real problems in our research, including art jurisprudence research, is that serious management based on needs assessment and future research and establishing a relationship between the real problems of art and the minds of researchers, whether in the field of website development, in the field of auditing and content production, in the field of business and art law, or in the media dimensions of art, has not been carried out.

In other words, the seminary is like a land that needs to be planned. You must know, as a systematic process, by continuously monitoring and recognizing the forces of the seminary, what wealth you have and with what plan this wealth can be processed and put in the most effective and efficient state for producing a product. If this planning is done carefully, the product produced with this wealth will be a popular product and there will be no challenge of using a fatwa. In my opinion, this territorial planning has not been done on a land called the seminary and its capitals, and it will not be done; therefore, we do not have a needs assessment, we do not train researchers according to needs, and we do not train future researchers.

These are the main pillars of research management. One of the important tasks of research management is to monitor problems and transfer them to the research desk of researchers so that problems can be transformed into problems, hypotheses, and hypotheses into solutions, and solutions can solve problems. These are tasks that must be done in research management. However, the current structure of the seminary management is such that we do not know how successfully such events can be carried out. If they are actually carried out, they will not be reported; but it is expected that such conditions will exist; That is, as long as the research desk of seminary researchers and jurisprudential researchers is far from the challenges and problems of art governance, the challenges and problems of art civilization, the challenges and problems of art consumers, and the rights of art consumers and producers, researchers will move towards abstract and fabricated issues, and in contrast, problems will remain in the field of art implementation and in the field of artistic production.

Research management in the field of art jurisprudence, like in other fields, must really monitor and address the real and actual problems that exist. In this recent conference on art jurisprudence, the conference secretariat had thought about this issue to some extent. Both the artists themselves were present at the conference and raised their concerns with art jurisprudence researchers, and articles were written about several real problems in the field of cinema art; but here again there is a serious problem, and that is that research management is expected to provide the conditions and grounds for interdisciplinary studies, in addition to monitoring the problems and transferring them to the research table of researchers.

The formation of interdisciplinary art studies means truly purposeful activity, in such a way that a third idea is truly created by sitting together two experts from two different fields and two different scientific disciplines. If an artistic behavior and practice are prevented, it should be such a serious interdisciplinary work that an alternative artistic practice should be proposed instead. The conflict of ideas of two or more disciplines participating in an interdisciplinary research should be so effective that it leads to the solution of a real problem; that is, a crooked line should be prevented and a straight line should be proposed.

The reality is that interdisciplinary studies are not a choice or a taste; rather, they are an inevitable necessity and there is no other way; therefore, it should happen in the field of research management that we move towards serious and effective interdisciplinary studies, not activity-oriented interdisciplinary studies that do not seek a real goal.

This conversation is part of the electronic magazine “Principles of Art Jurisprudence” produced in cooperation with the School of Art Jurisprudence and the Ijtihad Network website.