Part 3 — Chapter 1 — Signification of Authority
It has been conspicuous that the entire Sahaba's ultimate decency conception did create a factual authority that installed seeable effects on jurisprudential and political life of Islam. This authority occupied the position of the doctrinal one defined by God and explicated by the Prophet of God, owing to ordinary transmission and imitation. The doctrinal authority, because of policy of oversight and propounding the surrogate one, became unfamiliar to the degree that some people conjectured his illegality. They saw the surrogate one as the legitimate.
For providing a distinct exhibition of legal facts of the legitimate doctrinal authority, we are to allocate a specific title for this purpose.
Authority is that body whose mission is explicating judgments, as well as rulings, of the divine Islamic doctrine. Such an explication must not be attained by supposition and conjecture. It must be attained by such a way of certitude and conviction that it must be identical to the divine intendment. Applying so, the believers will be accepting this explication of the doctrinal authority as an intellectual or invariable fact that can be taken as a conceptional base or a path upon which ideas are structured or march is commenced. In his lifetime, the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) is the authority of the Muslims to whom they refer in the doctrinal affairs, and whose words are the decisive judgment since he is believed as the most knowledgeable of the doctrinal rulings. After the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), the head of his household — the Imam — is the authority regarding his most knowledgeability of the doctrinal affairs. This is the Shias' conception. The Prophet's companions, individually and congregationally, are representing the reference of explicating the divine doctrine after the Prophet's decease. They are entirely decent. Each individual of them is decent. They are the eternal occupants of the Paradise. They are the witnesses who conveyed this religion to us.
1 For all of these qualifications, the Sahaba are the legitimate authority. Hence, it is a matter of fact that pursuing any of such individuals shall inevitably lead to the right
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1 bn-Hajar Al-Asqalani's Al-Isabetu Fi Tamyizis-Sahaba, page 5 and on.
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path. The ruler is the legitimate authority in the absence of the Sahaba. He is having the right of scrutinizing the various ideas and conclusions to opt for what he tends. These ideas and conclusions are the previous questions provided in the time of the Sahaba. The ruler, whoever he was, is the legitimate authority since the Muslims should stand in the line of the prevailing in any case.
2 This opinion is familiarly ascribed to AbdullahbnOmar, the famous Sahabi. Sunnis adopted this opinion. The dominant, hence, is the authority who has the right to elicit verdicts even if he is not qualified enough to derive rulings. He also has the license of opting for any opinion of any mujtahid — having the talent of inferring verdicts and rulings from the defined sources of legislation, lacking or having the authority of legislation.
Coherence of Authority and Doctrine
There is a correlative relation and cohesion between the authority and the doctrine. The authority infers the rulings from the doctrine. No doctrine exists without an authority, and no authority exists without a doctrine. The essential chore of the authority is demonstrating the divine belief. The prophet, followed by the authority, substantiates the very intendment of Allah, the Exalted. The divine doctrine determined the boundaries of the words, deeds, goals and means of attaining these goals. Also, the divine doctrine constituted the relationship between the believers and their doctrine in all levels. Thus, the role of the authority is restricted in elucidating the doctrine thoroughly and typifying it with the novel eventualities.
The authority is the only responsible of transferring the texts, rulings and purposes of the doctrine from hypothesis into application. In other words, the authority is the one in charge of applying words on levels of solicitation and administration. In this regard, the Prophet's presentation of the divine doctrine is a part of that doctrine and reckoned with the numerous contents of it. While the presentation of Ali, AlHassan, AlHussein, ZainulAabidin, Ja'far AsSadiq or any other Imam is seen as one of the constitutional precedents that are necessary for those who propose to make their deeds coincide with the divine intendment. Hence, the presentation of the authorities succeeding the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) is not reckoned as a part of the doctrine. However, such a presentation is
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2 Al-Qasimi's Nidhamul-Hukm, page 244-5.
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obligatory upon the individual believing in the legitimacy of that individual's authority. Doctrinally, it is illicit to contravene the legitimate Imam who represents the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family). Thus, compliance to this authority is accounted as same as compliance to the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).
Authority is A Matter of Specialization and A Technique
of Thorough Experience
The like of doctrine is a ship the captain of which is the authority. It is essential charts of divine proposition of salvation. The authority is the engineer in charge of managing, explaining, interpreting and materializing the process of planning this proposition objectively and ideologically. The authority, however, is the instructor of establishment. Logically, it is insane to prepare the raw materials of that institution before seeking the advisory of the instructor and the engineer. Regarding the Islamic doctrine, the authority must be the most knowledgeable of this doctrine, the most reliable, the most confident of Allah, the most honorable and the fittest for leadership and authority. The authority is the arbiter and the spokesman of the divine judgment. It is inevitable that the authority is the adopter of judgments identical to the divine intendment.
Variety of Authorities
In a single divine doctrine, there is always a single authority. The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), hence, is the most regardable authority of Islam. In his time, Moses, the prophet, was the most regardable authority. In case Moses is absent, Aaron becomes the authority related and following Moses. When both are attendant, Moses is the authority. The same thing is said about Jesus. He is the authority in affairs appertained to Christianity. In reality, variety of authorities results in disintegration of the doctrine, dissipation of its disciples and extricating of false authorities.
In Islam, the authority is one and only. It is a matter of specialization and one of the most significant exigencies. In the absence of the doctrinal legitimate authority, every individual or group of Muslims take their own way believing their only rightfulness. This occurs because of frequent practices of erroneous matters. This will certainly be leading to engagement
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in discrepancies and a dispersal too diffusive to be re accumulated except when there is a single authority whose word is regarded as a conventional and intellectual reality accepted collectively with full satisfaction. This is the solitary method of uniting the Muslims.
Difference Between Doctrine and Authority
It is the same difference between solicitation and its crier. Mohammedan solicitation is relying upon two things; the Quran and the Prophet's traditions; words, deeds and signature. This is a property of Mohammed (peace be upon him and his family). The doctrine is the Holy Quran and its explication; the Prophet's words, deeds and signature. This is by the consideration that the explicator — the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) — is a coherent part of the doctrine. Similarly, confiding and committing to the Prophet, and submitting to the authenticity of his understanding the religion, is a coherent part of the doctrine. On this account, the Prophet's words are decisive in all manners, since he is the most knowledgeable and familiar with this doctrine. In addition, he is the most favorable and the fittest to leadership.
Thereafter, the religion was perfected and the divine grace was consummate. The Quran left no single thing without explanation before the Prophet was transmitted to His Lord's neighbor. The doctrine, represented by the Holy Quran and the Prophet's words, deeds and signature, was left among us. The authority is a matter of another concern. That authority’s mission is explicating the divine doctrine and harmonizing it with the current mundane circumstances.
Manifesting this idea, we say: the doctrine is a ship the captain of which is the authority. It is the general and detailed charts of a scheme the engineer of which is the authority who is completely familiar with such charts. It is the raw materials needed for constructing the anticipated edifice, and the authority is that expert of construction. It is an ideational structure or, in other words, an idiosyncratic virtual entity, while the authority is the expresser of the attitudes of that virtual entity towards objective issues. It is not unacceptable to say that the doctrine is that large pharmacy containing remedy of every ailment. The authority is the physician whose mission is diagnosing the malady and prescribing the curative treatment positively found at that large pharmacy; the doctrine.
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Wisdom of Effecting the Authority
Granting that God compulsorily reveals doing good to a human or designates a special angel for directing to the good, a human shall not be meriting the rewards of conducting good since he has been coerced on doing. There is only one matter becoming the divine abstraction of testing. This matter is God's granting mankind the capability of discerning right from wrong, as well as the capability of conducting the right and the wrong after these two things are shown manifestly to him. Next to discriminating the good from the bad and revealing what is licit or permissible, God awards mankind the freedom of doing good or evil fully satisfactorily and optionally. Only after that, mandatory individuals deserve the reward or the penalty of opting for good or evil.
The previous is the ground upon which the idea of messaging divine epistles to mankind is based. Regarding it as one of the essences of explicating the divine epistles, the idea of finding an authority was also originated on the same ground.
The idea of the divine epistles is going around two main pivots:
1. A messenger having the qualifications of conveying the divine message. This messenger is surmised as the earthy authority of that message.
2. A message with episodes too impracticable to be conveyed apart from a messenger or an authority. This message is set by Allah to be taken as the proposal of the divine guidance. Allah, the Exalted, is the supreme source to Whom messengers refer in matters appertained to the message.
1st step of revealing a divine missive to mankind is selecting a messenger or an authority.
2nd step is teaching the elected messenger the contents of that divine message; that is to mean the doctrine.
3rd step is the messenger's efforts of conveying and explicating the message adequately to people involved, and surveying their verbal response. This is for the purpose that that messenger will be the witness on such people. As being considered as the authority who has full and thorough acquaintance of the divine message, the messenger is referred to in questions appertained. He refers to Allah in questions involved when he
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becomes in need of further explication. This is a truth so resolute that except the ignorant, none would dispute about.
All the time, the messenger is the authority whose mission is explaining and divulging the message contents and methods of applying such contents effectively in a way attaining God's acknowledgment.
In case of the messenger's decease, the doctrine is endurable as long as there are followers. Similarly, there must be an authority for playing the role of the explicator and witness. This matter is one of the essences of divine messages. For rehearsing the process of divine testing, it is imperative that there is only one authority for the one doctrine for leading the march of caravan of faith whether it was on the level of preliminary solicitation or government in case the authority could achieve the process of developing a preliminary solicitation into a governmental administration.
The Authority is An Undeniable Fact
In an essay published in AlLiwa, the Jordanian journal, issue955, dated: 17/Safar /1412A.H., I recorded the following:
It is not unfamiliar for the Arab political parties that the divine epistles addressed at mankind have been ceaseless all over history. We, hereby, are to ask those honorable political parties to show us whether there had ever been a divine epistle sent without a human medium; a messenger? They are to search in the history of the globe as a whole, beginning with Adam and ending with Mohammed (peace be upon him and his family). Proving their lack to provide any evidence, it is the proper time for them to admit the fact that they had been engaged in partisan imitation and it is, also, the proper time for them to shun that imitation and take God in consideration during proceeding any further step concerning their religion, nation as well as mankind as a whole, who attach great expectations to their religion for being the ultimate savior of this globe which is the means of transferring humankind from claws of disgusting materiality into the large phase of divine compatibility of events and rulings.
The Islamic doctrine has an authority; God's Apostle (peace be upon him and his family). This doctrine pointed out the authority succeeding the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family). This is for the essential role of authority in the life.
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Any family and government have an authority. This is by the reason that the authority is a principal element of any advocacy, association of individuals, doctrine and state. The gist of misfortunes the Muslims have been encountering is their banishing the doctrinal authority assigned by Allah, and clinging to the surrogate one imposed by the prevailing powers and humiliatingly concurred by people owing to their partisan pursuance.
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Chapter 2 — The Doctrine
The relation between doctrine and authority is interdependent. The existence of an authority is fundamentally actual whenever there is a doctrine. Contemporaneity and reciprocal perfection between doctrine and authority are necessarily existent. For focusing thorough light on the meaning of authority, it is important to study the signification of doctrine since it is infeasible to understand one without having an adequate intimacy with the other.
What is the sense of doctrine? Generally, a doctrine implies the mass of correlate and perfect ideas, rules, principals and values that are contributing in providing a picture of the past, present and expected or sought future of the being, disregarding genuineness, comprehensiveness and perfection of this picture. A definite group of people will be unquestionably attracted to that doctrine as they have been convinced of the picture provided. Pursuant to criteria of that doctrine, the group involved determine their concepts, goals and ways taken for attaining these goals. From this cause, the doctrine is being the leader, director and source of the advantage and legislation of that group's life.
Any doctrine, in this aspect, naturally claims of its aptitude to administrate the followers' life, render convalescent solutions for their problems, and promote to a bright morrow. In addition, such a doctrine claims of owning means of meting out prosperity among the embracers. Such claims can make considerable mental and physical vibrations in the embracers’ spirits until they advance the doctrine as a political school ready for evidencing claims through influential individuals taking the charge of authority and planning policies of that group in respect of concepts of the doctrine. The political school is same as the perfect political schedule produced by the doctrine. It is a declaration of that doctrine's facilitative ideology, philosophy and principals so that they can be readily applied and experienced. Besides, the political schedule provided by a doctrine highlights on the goals and their achieving means. All the above is practically connected with the existence of a governmental or ruling authority whose main task is applying this schedule on actuality. In this regard, we can look upon the emancipating
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Capitalism and the Communist Marxism as doctrines.
Two Categories of Doctrines
Mankind knew only two categories of doctrines:
1. Divine doctrines created by God.
2. Positive doctrines counted, or accumulated, by one or more individuals.
Creating Doctrines and their Essences
A deep view in the subject of doctrines makes us discover the fact that it is possible for any human to conceive any doctrine whether good or evil. But it is impractical for him to create or even found an ideal doctrine. As a nature, humans are unqualified to establishing such an ideal doctrine. Moreover, it is quite moderate to admit the fact that it is unattainable for the entire human beings to create a single convictional ideal doctrine even if they were proceeding in the same level. Yet; it is fictitious and impossible to propose that people will be on practicing on the same level one day. This takes us to the certitude that instituting an ideal doctrine is a matter exceeding ordinary levels and capacities of this life. This is because that such a concern requires, as a pillar part, a dogmatic knowledge of mankind's past and their detailed experiences. Besides, it requires a categorical knowledge of man's nature, exigencies, motives, trends and future. Future, as a factor of time, is the singular element that shows the fruition or the abortion of any doctrine. Finally, instituting an ideal doctrine requires a conservative knowledge of the universe surrounding mankind. These sorts of knowledge, as a conclusion, are impossibly attained by any individual, group or even the entire mankind.
Sooner or later, positive doctrines shall be, beyond any dispute, collapsed. This is for the elementary reason that humankind are naturally unqualified enough to institute a doctrine. The dogmatic doctrine that is appropriate to be perpetual ground of authority is the one created by Allah, the Creator. This is the Islamic doctrine which was actually representing premise of the state governed by Mohammed the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).
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Characteristics of the Islamic Doctrine
1. Practically; Islam stands for perfect compliance to Allah, the Elevated, in every mundane or celestial affair. This can be achieved by submitting and directing conducts of the Islamic state, including individuals and groups on the entire levels, to the criteria of the divine commands defined by the persuasive divine message (the doctrine), which is Islam, towards carrying through the doctrinal goals. Conducts, in this regard, consents to the practices bowed to the doctrinal ideal and intendment.
2. Hypothetically; the Islamic doctrine betokens group of rulings, judgments, principals and matters to be enjoined and others to be avoided in addition to the general and detailed instructions revealed by God, the Exalted, to the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family). He (peace be upon him and his family) did explain and call for those things hypothetically through his solicitation or the government he founded. Eventually, those matters were put into application by the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) himself through the solicitation and the government.
Hence, the doctrine comprises God’s revealed matters and the Prophet’s deeds, words and signature. This role of the doctrine, as a perfected body, is answering wonderments regarding existence, incentives, termination, its way and the outcome of life. It also regulates the relations between the creatures themselves and the relations between their Creator and them and the universe and them. This universe is essential for the existence of those creatures and, in the same time, submitted for serving them. Other roles of the doctrine are showing ways of the termination of the whole permanence and that of each individual's life. It reveals the being of another life which is as same as a court evaluating deeds of all of those who passed through circle of the world. In other words, it is the end result due to which each shall be rewarded or penalized so fairly.
This doctrine is a fully occupied record of the entire creatures’ history, especially mankind. In this record, the total experiments are banked so genuinely and objectively that an artistic depiction showing absolute audible, visual, mobile, outward and clandestine views and scenes.
The doctrine, likewise, is the system of individuals, societies, authorities and mankind in general. It rectifies the life of each individual solitarily, relations between individuals, their relations with their Creator and their relations with the world encompassing them. Those individuals is supported by
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advocacy of that doctrine. The advocacy is supported by establishing a government. The government is supported by goals and supreme ideality.
This doctrine is purposeful. It has the capacity of determining its goals. There is a purpose for each rulings decided. This ruling is originally decided and issued for that very purpose. Similarly, there are goals beyond the existence of individuals, societies, authorities and mankind as a whole. All of these goals are moving to the same place, which is the exact general goal of Islam. Goals involved are circumscribed and standardized in such a way that they deliberately reflect the scope of energies, without redundancy or blemish, latent in substances of individuals, societies, authorities and mankind as a whole. In a like fashion, the goals reflect the energies of beings enclosing the mankind and submitted to their ministration. Things do not possess but their energies. Besides goals determined by the Islamic doctrine, means, methods and ways of achieving and clarifying these goals are devised so patently that any mystification is unmistakably removed.
The Dogmatic Depiction
Islam, as a doctrine, provides an unequivocal, complete and comprehensive depiction based upon concluding and certitude. This dogmatic depiction covers the entire area of goals and general and specific means in the total fields of life and on the total individual, social, political, economical and international levels…etc. It is the accurate general and detailed outlines of factuality of the present and the expected and sought future, which is anticipated to be an actual fact, of events. These outlines are anticipated to leading individuals gradually to the doctrinal purpose using the shortest, the cheapest and the broadest way. Only then, the doctrine becomes the leader and the director besides its becoming the source of legality that is resolved as a perfect ideological structure. Selfcontentment and satisfaction, when attained by conviction and certitude, are the sustainers of such a structure. Positive beliefs, on the other hand, are attained on grounds of conjecture and surmise; therefore, they, sooner or later, shall be collapsing.
The Divine Jurisprudential Formulation
The Islamic doctrine betokens the group of rulings, judgments, principals, matters to be enjoined and those to be avoided in addition to the general and detailed instructions revealed by God, the Exalted, to his Prophet (peace be
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upon him and his family). The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) did explain and call for those things hypothetically through his solicitation or the government he founded. The Revealer is Allah, and the Explainer is God's messenger. The media of explanation were the Prophet's words, deeds and signature. Revelation and explanation are forming the divine jurisprudential formulation which stands as the law effective and valid in every time. The doctrinal authority is the director and the tutor of the followers of this doctrine after the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).
