Notice: The general approach in jurisprudential issues is often the “answer to the question” approach; It means that first a question must arise in order to seek an answer to it. Of course, this approach also exists in many other Islamic and human sciences. In recent years, however, with the creation of “future research” knowledge, it has become possible to change this passive approach to an active approach to questions and issues. The jurisprudence of art is no exception to this rule, so, with future research in relation to it, one can guess the issues of the coming years and start looking for solutions to answer them right now. In this special note, Hasan ljra’i, a researcher at the Contemporary Jurisprudence Institute, tries to analyze the future of art jurisprudence.

Has the jurisprudence of art in its short life opened up a problem of jurisprudence and art? Could the possible failure of art jurisprudence until today be the result of an imprecise perception of its purpose? What should be its purpose? The knowledge of jurisprudence of art, as an interdisciplinary knowledge that rereads art and various artistic trends with a jurisprudential approach, although it has reached a certain level of prosperity and growth, it is still in its initial stages and has not found a natural and automatic connection with art disciplines. In this way, the jurisprudence issues of art are more than the result of connecting jurisprudence and artistic trends, and as a result of scientific exchange, it is the result of the expansion of jurisprudential concerns in artistic fields and looks at art from a transcendental perspective.

Fiqh is a normative knowledge that, in its most transcendent aspects, looks at all actions in the world from the point of view of halal and haram. The existing conventional jurisprudence in facing contemporary and new issues without seeking to get close to a precise and empathetic understanding of the issues, seems to impose pre-made models on new issues and looks at the new world from the angle and glasses of traditional models and about it. He issues orders. On the other hand, one can imagine an ideal jurist who, with an active understanding of new issues, does not insist on attaching traditional patterns to new issues and looks at the world and humans from an empathetic perspective before taking a transcendental view of issues. Thus, new fiqh requires a new understanding of the world and man today.

Though art jurisprudence knowledge is one of the new knowledge and contemporary efforts in jurisprudence, it is largely a recreation of traditional fiqh methods in the new era and still has not been able to open a new way; As if it is only a new interpretation of jurisprudence that has turned the art-related sections into independent fragments. In this way, most of the topics of art jurisprudence are still limited to topics such as poetry, music and sculpture, image and dance, and do not pay attention to most conventional arts, including theater, cinema, visual arts, etc.

Thus the selection of topics and issues that art jurisprudence deals with, as it was said, in terms of the approach and method of dealing with issues, art jurisprudence is still a function of conventional and traditional jurisprudence and has not taken any serious steps to adopt new methods; Even in cases where art jurists have entered issues such as theater, still one of the main issues they have pursued to reach a jurisprudential ruling on it has been through the identification of women with men and vice versa, which indicates that there are no serious issues in this.

Perhaps one of the main challenges of art jurisprudence can be seen as the conflict between the original features of jurisprudence and art; for one is normative and rule-based and bases its norms on all other issues, and on the other hand, the point of differentiation and identity of the other is creativity, avoiding rules and making a new plan every day and building a new world. In this way, it may be difficult to introduce the rules and norms and principles of jurisprudence and the principles of jurisprudence to artistic subjects; for in addition to the rules governing jurisprudence, other knowledges related to inference and ijtihad must also be reconstructed in line with the true understanding of art, and it is not possible to achieve jurisprudential rulings only by introducing new issues to the previous rules.

According to what has been said, the normative and regularity of jurisprudence and, on the other hand, the rule-avoidance and creativity of art, make it necessary to go beyond the conventional rules of jurisprudence and try to achieve rules that are related and consistent with the characteristics of the world of art. For instance, the issue of “misguided books” which was considered a clear issue in the past, but today cannot be easily diagnosed based on it; for guidance and misguidance in art have gone out of propositional matter and turned into artistic matter, pictorial and based on complex narratives. If the knowledge of traditional jurisprudence clarifies the concept of misleading books with a general ruling, today it is difficult to consider an artistic work as having the concept of misleading in its jurisprudential and clear sense.

Thus, art fiqh, instead of a propositional, apparent and textual approach to the subject of art, must build a knowledge that is appropriate and compatible with its subject and may need to reconstruct its fundamentals as well; for the central approach in the principles of jurisprudence is to deal with traditional artistic subjects (for instance, poetry and sculpture), confronting them as propositions that can be true and false that can be applied to rulings and reach a conclusion; As sculpting or making a statue is soulful or non-soulful and the ruling is clear in both, but such a clear ruler cannot be found for misleading or guiding a cinematic story or a theatrical narrative or a musical work.

From this, we may be of the opinion that art jurisprudence, instead of focusing too much on what the previous jurists have focused on, must discuss art jurisprudence from the point of view of the purposes and goals of art, and for instance, without focusing on each and every statement of a screenplay, the whole make it the criterion for misleading or guiding evaluation and examine each work of art from the perspective of its overall effect, not single statements and single scenes and single verses.

Just as the jurisprudence of art is still at the beginning despite the efforts of many years, trying to introduce a new plan in it is also difficult and might be difficult and impossible, but just like the conventional and traditional jurisprudence, at least in terms of the narration of some jurists, gradually and step by step. It is on the way of using jurisprudence for purposes, probably the jurisprudence of art can be reread and reconstructed instead of focusing on the propositions and appearance of the texts, relying on the goals and totality and the results and contexts of the texts, society and human needs in order to achieve the ruling.

The notice is a part of the electronic magazine “Fundamentals of Art Jurisprudence” which was produced in collaboration with the School of Jurisprudence of Art and the Ijtihad Network website.