One of the criticisms that artists level against jurists is their unfamiliarity with artistic subjects. According to artists, many jurisprudential titles are fundamentally not applicable to contemporary instances of art or have been mistakenly applied. In this regard, the authority of the expert’s opinion is almost an accepted matter among jurists. Now, the question is whether, for applying titles such as amusement (lahw), futility (laghv), play (la‘b), and the like, which are used to prove the prohibition of some types of art, one can rely on the expert? On this occasion, we spoke with Professor Seyed Sadeq Alamolhoda. This professor of advanced jurisprudence and principles at the Qom Seminary believes that both the expertise of artists in artistic categories is subject to doubt and the authority of the expert’s opinion in these cases. The full text of the exclusive interview of Contemporary Fiqh with this professor of the Qom Seminary passes before your eyes. This interview has been published in the electronic magazine “Mabadi Fiqh Honar” (Foundations of the Jurisprudence of Art), which has been produced in collaboration with the Research Institute for Contemporary Jurisprudential Studies, the School of the Jurisprudence of Art, and the Ijtihad Network website.
Contemporary Fiqh: What is your opinion regarding the authority of the expert’s opinion?
Alamolhoda: The discussion of the authority of the expert’s opinion arises in the subjects of rulings, and as far as I know, no jurist considers the expert’s opinion authoritative in itself and “as it is the expert’s opinion”; because there is no religious evidence for its devotional authority. From my humble perspective, there is not even decisive evidence for the inherent authority of the report of a trustworthy person or a just person in rulings, despite the fact that the authority of the trustworthy report has gained great fame among the later scholars; therefore, the jurist’s task is not completed merely by an expert’s statement on a subject.
Of course, in subjects whose identification depends on expertise, one can and indeed must refer to the people of expertise to reach certainty. What is actually authoritative for the jurist is this certainty, which rarely results from the opinion of one expert, but rather requires the consensus of the experts or it is necessary for other indications to confirm the expert’s opinion, just as sometimes due to the disagreement of experts, no benefit is obtained for the jurist.
In any case, for the precise recognition of some subjects of rulings, the jurist has a difficult path ahead. He must open a way to confidence and certainty by collecting indications and evidence, in which process the expert’s opinion plays only the role of one indication alongside other indications; and if the jurist cannot find a way to recognize the subject, he is inevitably forced to issue a fatwa based on practical principles.
Contemporary Fiqh: Why do jurists, in the jurisprudence of art which is a specialized field, not refer to the opinions of experts? For example, why do they not entrust the verification of titles such as “corruption” (mofsadeh), “amusement” (lahw), and so forth to art experts? Is the problem in the expertise of artists (minor premise) or the authority of the expert’s opinion in art (major premise)?
Alamolhoda: There is a problem in both areas. Both in the expertise of artists and experts in the field of art and in the authority of the expert’s opinion in the jurisprudence of art. Regarding the major premise of the issue, as mentioned, the expert’s opinion in no subject, as such, is authoritative. What is authoritative for the jurist is the certainty that he obtains from the expert’s opinion or from any other way. But we also have something to say about the minor premise. The words you referred to are taken from the speech of the Lawgiver and must be interpreted and carried upon the meaning intended by the Lawgiver at the time of uttering the speech. For this purpose, it is necessary to take the common understanding of the era of issuance of the religious texts as the criterion, and it is not clear whether the experts you have in mind have a way to the meanings of the words in that era.
Therefore, the address in which words like “corruption” (mofsadeh) or “amusement” (lahw) or “play” (la‘b) are used cannot be subjected to jurisprudential interpretation based on the concept that is derived from them today, but rather it is necessary to recognize the intent of the Lawgiver from these words and make that the basis for deducing the ruling. In this regard, contemporary art experts cannot have authority regarding these words and what exactly the intent of the Lawgiver from these words is.
In technical terms, in many of the words taken in the addresses related to the field of art, we are faced with a conceptual ambiguity. What exactly the intent of the Lawgiver from “amusement” (lahw), “amusement of speech” (lahw al-hadith), “futility” (laghv), and the like is, for the current generation is either entirely mixed with doubt or involved in ambiguity in the extensions of the meaning and the breadth and narrowness of its scope; therefore, in such ambiguous subjects, the jurist is forced to enter himself so that perhaps by gathering indications—which can include one of them being the statements of contemporary experts—he reaches a point of certainty.
Contemporary Fiqh: Some believe that entrusting the identification of titles such as corruption (mofsadeh), amusement (lahw), play (la‘b), futility (laghv), falsehood (kizb) (in plays), and so forth to individual obligated persons causes disorder and chaos in the policy-making of the jurisprudence of art. Do you confirm this opinion?
Alamolhoda: If the intent from identifying the aforementioned titles is identifying their concepts, which as mentioned, the jurist cannot delegate the task to anyone other than himself, even if he is an expert in subjects related to these fields. Identifying the conceptual scope of these titles is a specialized theoretical task that the jurist himself must undertake. Of course, in this arena, the jurist may need to refer to various specialists, including linguists, art experts, and historians.
But if the intent is identifying instances after assuming the clarification and clarity of their concepts, which undoubtedly is the responsibility of the obligated persons themselves, jurists have said from long ago that identifying the instances of subjects of rulings is the responsibility of the obligated person himself. The jurist at most clarifies the subject of the ruling in a clear and transparent manner for the obligated person; but what the instance of this subject is, is not the jurist’s responsibility, except in special cases where identifying the instance is also placed on the mujtahid, such as identifying instances of crime in judicial matters, which according to the famous opinion, the mujtahid must enter and determine the instance of the crime and issue a judicial ruling based on it.
Contemporary Fiqh: What suggestions do you have for increasing the efficiency of the jurisprudence of art?
Alamolhoda: The jurisprudence of art has become very much needed in the contemporary period; because art plays a serious and prominent role in human life today. The reality is that we are facing serious challenges in the jurisprudence of art, both in the section of recognizing concepts and in the section of recognizing rulings. In my opinion, if a jurist wants to accomplish important work in the jurisprudence of art, in addition to the usual efforts in the operations of deduction, he must enter two arenas:
One: Employ doubled efforts to precisely interpret the intent of the words related to the field of art that are taken in the religious addresses. This matter requires deep studies in the field of ancient Arabic language and the history of the Jahiliyyah period and early Islam. It even sometimes requires referring to some archaeological and anthropological sources to obtain a comprehensive knowledge of the life and culture of the people of the era of the Holy Lawgiver. For example, the title of singing (taghanni), which has been censured and prohibited in numerous narrations, exactly pertains to what action and under what conditions? Is every kind of singing accompanied by repetition and excitement an instance of the singing that has been censured in the hadiths?
Two: In addition to that, the jurist must acquire sufficient knowledge of contemporary instances of art and understand them well; because perhaps some of the artistic titles referred to in the hadiths have developed a contradictory relationship with what is presented as art in the contemporary era, as the elders say, attention to the influence of the two elements of time and place in deducing rulings is important, because subjects change and transform over time and across places, and this very topical change and transformation may lead to a change in the ruling.
For now, I briefly state that one of the arenas that particularly needs to have the element of time and place examined regarding it, and its transformations throughout history and in accordance with the time and culture of the era, deeply monitored, is art and categories related to art. In summary, we must know that the Arab society before Islam and in early Islam, which is called the era of the Lawgiver, in comparison with other societies, was considered low in art or even devoid of art. The hard life of Bedouinism and desert wandering and livelihood constraints and the cultural elements dominant in Arab societies at that juncture, to some extent necessitated this, therefore, from the common arts of today, either there was no trace at all in the Arab society of the era of the Lawgiver or if there was, it was in a superficial and vulgar form and in service of ill purposes.
For example, in the group of visual arts, the art of painting had almost no history among the Arabs of that era, sculpture was also in service of idol-making and producing instruments of polytheism, not that it was considered as an art, unlike the ancient Iranians and Romans who engaged in sculpting and imaging as a decorative art. Even calligraphy, which later flourished among Muslims as an art, had no clear history among the Arabs of the era of the Lawgiver who were mostly illiterate.
Auditory arts like singing and playing instruments, which flourished to some extent in the late Umayyad period and then in the Abbasid period, were mostly in a vulgar form and in service of the gatherings of pleasure of the people of corruption and debauchery and concurrent with prohibitions such as the mixing of men and women and wine-drinking or accompanied by the propagation of unethical and polytheistic concepts and contents.
No clear trace of architectural art is seen in the Arab society contemporary with the religious texts. Their famous and well-known building was the Kaaba, which was at the peak of simplicity in terms of architecture and lacked any artistic features. It was natural that in the early days of Islam, with the mindset that the world is a place of passage and does not hold much importance, decorative arts that carried the label of worldly and attention to the world were more marginalized, in addition to the fact that some areas related to art were also faced with prohibition and negation by the Sharia.
Of course, after the Islamic conquests and under the influence of the great civilizations of that time, namely the ancient Iranian civilization and the ancient Roman civilization, and also following the attention that some Abbasid caliphs paid to the category of art, gradually arts in the Sassanid or Byzantine style entered Islamic societies, which in the first centuries were imitative and marginal, and it took centuries for Muslims to seriously enter many artistic subjects and become owners of style and school and blossom their hidden talents.
The artistic taste of the Jahili Arab people was mostly expended on poetry and oratory; and of course, they were the foremost of their time in this field; but this arena, like other arenas, was polluted with vulgarity. Their literature was in service of presenting vulgar contents, such as describing the eyes and eyebrows and body and manners of a beautiful woman, or boasting of lineage and ancestry and tribe, or reciting war poems and bragging to rivals and opponents.
Therefore, this probability is strongly raised that many of the titles related to the field of art in the religious texts are not applicable to contemporary artistic events, for the reason that they fundamentally had no history in the era of the texts; therefore, in my opinion, the most important work that must be done in the jurisprudence of art is subject recognition. For the jurist to be able to issue more precise fatwas for the people of his own era, he must recognize both the subjects related to the field of art in the era of the Lawgiver and the artistic subjects of his own time.