Title: The Jurisprudence of the Husayni Rites and the Jurists' Foundations and Their Proofs.
Author: Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi.
Publisher: Dar al-Mahajja al-Baydaʾ, Beirut, Lebanon
First edition: 1447 AH
Size: Waziri – 446 pages.
From the book's introduction:
The views we present in this book will center on the views of the jurists. Even though they differ greatly among themselves, the difference remains within the context of ijtihad and its scholarly criteria; so dealing with that legitimate difference must be within legitimate ethics.
It is no secret to the reader that the jurisprudential aspect of the Husayni rites has been addressed by the jurists in various chapters among the customary chapters of fiqh, or within individual issues; the Husayni rites have not had a special chapter and book in fiqh. Therefore, it required effort on our part to gather the scattered parts of the research and organize it in the form this book has taken, in the hope that the treatment of the Husayni rites in their jurisprudential aspect will develop to encompass the rulings of detailed subsidiary issues, as is the way of Islamic jurisprudence in its continuous development.
We will review the foundations of the jurists and their proofs in the course of discussing the particular elements and headings of each rite, and we will also refer to them in summary in the first chapter when discussing the rule of the Husayni rites.
As for what is meant by the proofs of the jurists, it is the basis and the source on which the jurist relied to establish the ruling on a rite, such as the Holy Qurʾan, the noble Sunna of the Prophet (s) and his infallible Household (a), their conduct, reason and consensus, and everything that can fall within the legal proofs, in establishing the ruling or its corroborating evidence.
As for the foundations, they are the nature of the view taken of a legal proof, the extent of its validity for inference, and the extent of its relevance in inference in terms of the degree and scope of its signification. To put it another way: the foundations are the convictions the jurist has reached through scholarly research concerning the general bases of legislation on which the construction of a legal ruling rests; then comes the stage of presenting the proof and its signification.
The noble reader will find that the source of the difference sometimes lies in the nature of the understanding of the proof—such as digging into its significations or interrogating its contexts—and at other times arises from the nature of the scholarly foundation that the jurist adopts. Likewise, the nature of one's reading of reality can affect the ruling, insofar as it falls under negative impediments and prohibitive concerns, or under positive effects and gains.
In presenting this modest effort, I hope thereby to reach a mature jurisprudential knowledge on the subject of the Husayni rites, and an understanding of the jurists' differences and their agreement. In presenting them I do not claim to cover them all; rather, I have confined myself to presenting those that are well known, or that I came across, and those I saw as suitable for presentation as an example of a type of inference—since what matters most is understanding the general lines of ijtihad on the subject of the Husayni rites, not surveying the views of all the jurists in every age.
I ask Allah, the Exalted, to grant us success in serving Imam al-Husayn (a) and serving his blessed rites; and from Allah (Almighty) we seek help and aspire to rectitude.
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
Bani Jamra / Bahrain
1441 AH
Revised and expanded in 1446 AH