Objections concerning taqlid?

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful

And blessings and peace be upon the noblest of His creation, our master Muhammad, and his pure progeny.

Most regrettably, most of those who launch their campaigns against taqlid and against following the scholars in the matters of the sacred Law do not proceed in their claims and objections from scholarly premises; rather:

a - They are either negative reactions to personal experiences the objector has gone through, and this is not objective research, because reality may be afflicted by partial flaws, which should not be reflected onto scholarly research.

b - Or those campaigns are part of organized campaigns, whether their proponent is aware of it or not, and their aim is the grand colonialist aim of separating religion from the reality of life. This objection comes in every era in a new garb; that is why you do not find them putting forward a disciplined scholarly alternative for activating religion in human life. So how, and from where, are people to take the teachings of their religion and the rulings of their Law?

The result this trend will arrive at is the suspension of religion and its removal from the human being himself, because those capable of deriving its rulings are the jurists; or else it will arrive at another result, namely following the proponents of these claims in their claims and in their understanding of religion, which means that they are calling people to follow (taqlid) themselves. Being alert to these facts would embarrass them and would give the believers insight into the reality of taqlid and its connection to the spirit of religion.

Regarding the question posed, we would like to make brief remarks on several aspects, from which we hope the clear answer will be understood, and from which the emptiness of the objector and his lack of scholarly competence and of historical investigation will be understood.

1- In the era of the Imams (a), people would turn to them in their religious legal questions. Yet despite their noble presence, they pointed to a group of their companions who possessed juristic expertise, and referred people to them, so that they could take the teachings of their religion from them when they were unable to reach the Ahl al-Bayt (a) because of the great distances and the difficulty of travel. Imam al-Rida (a), for example, directed people to take the teachings of their religion from Zakariyya ibn Adam, and said: (Zakariyya ibn Adam al-Qummi, the one trusted in religion and in worldly matters). And there were many others who were given the opportunity to issue fatwas to the people, such as Aban ibn Taghlib, whom Imam al-Baqir (a) ordered to sit in the mosque of Medina and issue fatwas to the people.

From this it is understood that the recourse of the one who lacks knowledge to the knowledgeable scholar who is versed in the rulings of religion and derives them is an established rational fact, a religious fact, and a practical fact that existed even in the time of the Ahl al-Bayt (a).

2- In the era of the Major Occultation, the Shiʿi scholars turned to recording the religious legal issues that people need, so that they would be a refuge for the general public in the era of the Occultation of the Infallible Imam. What should be known, however, is that the presentation of the religious rulings to people went through several stages, and the reason for the difference in presentation was either the author’s method or the requirements and exigencies of the era.

In the early centuries, from the Minor Occultation to the beginnings of the Major Occultation and the early centuries after it, there were many books of jurisprudence that served as practical treatises, though each of them had its own characteristics and method, such as (al-Mustamsak bi-Habl Al al-Rasul fi al-Fiqh) by Ibn ʿAqil; after him, Ibn al-Junayd, who died in 381 AH, had the book (Tahdhib al-Shiʿa li-Ahkam al-Shariʿa); Shaykh al-Saduq had the book (al-Muqniʿ wa al-Hidaya); Shaykh al-Mufid had the book (al-Muqniʿa); and Sayed al-Murtada; and Shaykh al-Tusi, who varied in his presentation of juristic rulings: he wrote (al-Nihaya) on fatwas, (al-Mabsut) on the branches of jurisprudence and its rules, and wrote (al-Khilaf), in which he presented Jaʿfari jurisprudence alongside the jurisprudence of the other Islamic schools. Books of jurisprudence continued to be issued in their variety, among the most famous of them being the book (Sharaʾiʿ al-Islam) by al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, which was in the form of juristic issues arranged according to the customary chapters; then came the evidential (istidlali) encyclopedias commenting on it, such as (al-Masalik), (al-Madarik), (al-Jawahir) and others.

So, as we see, the books of jurisprudence, which represented the ijtihad of their authors, the jurists, never ceased to be issued, and people would refer to them directly or through the scholars who possessed them. In this way taqlid—which is acting upon the religious rulings that the jurists set out—took its full course in Shiʿi reality. At some times the community had one of its eminent figures who enjoyed renown and to whom people from all lands turned with their questions; at other times there were multiple jurists in different lands, and even in the same place, and people would be attached to one of the jurists, turning to him with questions and putting their requests for rulings (istiftaʾat) to him. That is why we find that many books of jurisprudence consist of questions from the people of certain lands, the treatise then being named after them, or after the scholar who presented it, or after its subject.

3- We must also take note of an important aspect, namely that books of jurisprudence have a process of development in the presentation of topics. The topic of taqlid and ijtihad used to be discussed within doctrines and theology (kalam), then in the science of the principles of jurisprudence (usul), then Sayed al-Yazdi isolated it and set out its practical issues in the book al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqa. He was not the first to establish the Book of Ijtihad and Taqlid in jurisprudence, but he set out what ought to be known and emphasized concerning the legally responsible person (mukallaf) with respect to the religious rulings, especially with the multiplicity of jurists and marajiʿ.

We observe, even in this age, that some scholars discuss the Book of Ijtihad and Taqlid in the usul lesson rather than the fiqh lesson, because its basic topics suit the context of usul, since they relate to the mujtahid, the basis for referring to him, his conditions, and the extent of his wilāyah and his legitimate authority. Indeed, research into the Book of Ijtihad and Taqlid is research with multiple dimensions, such as (doctrine, usul, fiqh, reality).

As time advances, some headings are renewed with it and some needs emerge, which press upon the jurist to examine them from a practical legal standpoint in the form of a fatwa; thus new headings arise in the books of jurisprudence, some of which may have been discussed under other headings, such as banks, new contracts in trade, and the headings of the family, medicine, emigration, ziyārah (visitation) and others. The absence of a heading in the old books of jurisprudence is not evidence of its illegitimacy. Moreover, its later presence is evidence of newly arising needs and the pressing demands of reality—a response by jurisprudence, and by its vitality, to the requirements of new life.

And Allah is the Granter of success.

Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi