A member of the Imam Khumayni, may Allah’s mercy be upon him, and Islamic Revolution Research Institute said: Unlike some people, I do not consider jurisprudence to be like engineering, but I accept the necessity of paying attention to time and place in jurisprudence.
Sayyid Sadiq Haqiqat, a member of the academic board of the Imam Khumayni, may Allah’s mercy be him, and Islamic Revolution Research Institute, stated on June 25, at a scientific meeting “The Realm of Political Jurisprudence’s Validity” held by the Institute for Contemporary Jurisprudence Studies, that political jurisprudence has validity, but its validity is limited, and said: My discussion will be presented based on the theory of convergence, and as far as I have read, no article or book has fully addressed the discussion of political jurisprudence, and if there was a precedent, it would be the basis for our work; of course, a number of scattered discussions have addressed political jurisprudence, but if we ask the believers in political jurisprudence how you have proven its validity, they will not have an answer because they have taken it for granted.
Stating that political jurisprudence does not have an independent scientific discipline, he stated: “Validity in quantitative research means reliability and validity, and in philosophical research, validity means being philosophically proven, in other words, the strength of the argument and the proofs related to a knowledge are discussed. Political jurisprudence is also a jurisprudence that deals with politics.”
Mr. Haqiqat stated: “Political philosophy and political treatises are the two main competitors for political jurisprudence. Of course, the main alternative to political jurisprudence is political philosophy, not political treatises; my claim is that political jurisprudence has validity, which of course is considered valid from a maximalist perspective. So my claim has two branches; first, it is valid, and second, its validity is not maximal.”
He added: “The theory of compatibility has begun its work by criticizing the two minimal and maximalist approaches, with the approach that political jurisprudence also has validity between minimal and maximalist; of course, why political jurisprudence has validity requires a series of introductions.
The researcher said: The first premise is that although reason can find its way into many matters, revelation may also confirm or limit the ruling of reason in political and social issues. Therefore, reason is the main criterion in discovering political and social issues, but there is no contradiction in God having provided another source called revelation that may correct, confirm, or reject reason. In this premise, I would like to emphasize more on the validity of narration.
Jurisprudence is a valid knowledge
Senior Haqiqat added: Another premise is that jurisprudence is generally a valid knowledge, and knowledge determines the status of the rulings of the five pillars based on the power of ijtihad and by referring to the Book and Sunnah; if the argument is that jurisprudence is not a valid knowledge at all, there is room for debate, but I will base my assumption on the validity of jurisprudence; a person called a jurist who has the power of ijtihad makes ijtihad through a series of sources such as the Book (Qur’an), Sunnah, consensus, and reason, therefore it is a valid knowledge.
A member of the academic board of the Imam and Islamic Revolution Research Institute, stating that the principle is based on the continuity of the rulings of the Shari’ah, stated: Someone may say that jurisprudence is a valid knowledge, but it is not at the time of the Prophet, may Allah’s greetings be upon him and his progeny, and now; but I believe that, for example, if those who were the addressees of the Prophet and referred to them, the same issue would have existed during the time of the Imams, may God’s blessings be upon them, and the Minor Occultation. If it is said that many rulings have changed and it is not possible to refer to the rulings of that era, I believe that the principle is the continuity of the ruling of the Shari’ah, except for cases where the ruling does not continue and can change according to time. Also, another premise is that in the principles paradigm, imitation of the mujtahid is necessary.
He added: Another premise of mine is that political jurisprudence is not a new science compared to jurisprudence, but rather a part of jurisprudence that deals with political issues, and it is not the case that jurisprudence is one science and political jurisprudence is another science. The sixth premise is that there is no specific boundary between political and non-political issues such as transactions and… Someone may think that when we go to issues, there is a political group and a non-political group, but this premise says that there is no specific boundary between issues and there are many issues that have political and non-political dimensions, such as jihad, martyrdom operations, shura, hajj, political economy, and… .
Stating that jurisprudence and political jurisprudence being an art does not mean that they are technology and similar to engineering, Mr. Haqiqat said: I saw two articles by Dr. Ali Paya and this comment refers to his discussion; he has an article in which he says that a jurist is like an engineer and jurisprudence is like engineering and then he brings some evidence; he considers jurisprudence as a technology and says that Farabi also considered it an art a thousand years ago. In his words, jurisprudence is like engineering knowledge, that is, it is an applied science and it can be used for its time; for example, buildings were built in a way during the time of the Prophet and they had the knowledge to build palaces of that period, but this engineering is completely different today and if jurisprudence and engineering are both applied, the expectations we had from jurisprudence 1400 years ago do not exist today.
Mr. Haqiqat stated that in his opinion, industry means applied science, therefore it is time- and place-specific, and clarified: His conclusion is not that jurisprudence is invalid, but rather that he believes that jurisprudence should be like engineering in accordance with today’s requirements; his address to jurists is that if jurisprudence engineering does not progress in accordance with time and place, it will lose its effectiveness. My criticism is that why don’t we use the word technique instead of technology?
He continued: I do not consider jurisprudence to be like engineering, but I accept the consideration of time and place; jurisprudence does two things; first, it gives us rulings and laws in the individual and social spheres and shows whether the laws enacted in the country are in accordance with religion and Shari’ah or not? Another job of jurisprudence is to discover the will of the legislator, meaning we want to know if the Prophet (s) was present and I would ask him about my duty regarding elections and he would answer, but now that he is not there, I ask the mujtahid.
Comparing jurisprudence to engineering is a fallacy
He emphasized: Dr. Paya’s statements on the similarity between jurisprudence and engineering contain a kind of fallacy because, in addition to determining rulings, the jurist also discovers the will of the legislator. The result is that jurisprudence is a valid knowledge and the principle is the continuity of the Shariah’s rulings, and political jurisprudence is also a part of jurisprudence, therefore it determines the duties of the individual, society, and the government in the field of political and social issues.
Mr. Haqiqat stated: The second part of my claim was that political jurisprudence faces a series of limitations. The first limitation is that jurisprudence cannot expect a theory of the state, justice, etc.; jurisprudence cannot have a theory of the state; it can have propositions about the state, but it does not have a theory of the state. A theory is a set of interconnected propositions to prove a subject such as peace and justice, etc.; some of these propositions are anthropological, some are epistemological, etc., and if someone refines the foundations about the state and then seeks help from jurisprudence, he has left jurisprudence.
A member of the academic board of the Imam and Islamic Revolution Research Institute clarified: Jurisprudence by itself cannot deal with ontology and epistemology, etc. Therefore, if we say that the institution of the state is minimal or maximal, we cannot benefit from the jurist because if the jurist enters into philosophical discussions, he has stepped outside the knowledge of jurisprudence; The second is about the theory of peace, which jurisprudence cannot have because we have a collection of narrations about peace and war from which fatwas emerge. There are propositions in the Quran and narrations about peace and war, but they do not emerge from that theory because the theory of peace is based on ontology and anthropology, etc.
Limitations of Political Jurisprudence
He added: One of the limitations of political jurisprudence is that a single report has been proven since the time of al-Shaykh al-Tusi; according to the jurisprudence system, this single report takes precedence over the Qur’an because its implication is definitive; in my opinion, one of the limitations of political jurisprudence is this clinging to a single report, for example, for stoning, we accept it because of a single report, but we do not pay attention to the absence of a ruling in the Qur’an.
Stating that jurisprudence is a set of normative propositions, Mr. Haqiqat added: The jurisprudential system needs a set of laws; there is a long gap between the set of narrations and fatwas to reach laws, which cannot be filled because jurisprudence must see how these narrations emerged; narrations also emerged based on questions and answers from the Imam, meaning if more questions were asked, we would have more answers, so jurisprudence is passive because it is based on the type of question and the number of questions from the Imam, so we should not expect that narrations can be transformed into law.
Mr. Haqiqat stated: Contrary to the minimalist approach of religious intellectuals, jurisprudence is a valid science, and if we proceed based on ijtihad standards, jurisprudence addresses some issues that are worthy of this science; therefore, the job of jurisprudence is not to enter every field, so jurisprudence has validity, but it has limitations in several issues (justice, legitimacy, peace, the state, the boundary between public and private rights) that were mentioned.
He emphasized: “Therefore, we, the responsible ones, must refer to political jurisprudence, and if it has achieved much for us, then great. But if we see that our expectations are not fully met, then we have done our duty and have come to the conclusion that jurisprudence has nothing to say in this matter.”