View source for Authority of the rule of justice

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* '''Abstract'''
The '''authority of the rule of justice''' is a position held by a group of jurists who incorporate the [[rule of justice]] into ijtihad and give it precedence over other proofs. They rely on several proofs, including verses of the Quran, numerous narrations, the rule of correlation between reason’s judgment regarding the goodness of justice and the ruling of the Sharia, the continuous practice of rational people, and the necessity of comparing narrations with the Quranic principle negating injustice. According to proponents of the rule of justice, these proofs can establish the authority of the rule on several levels: a) as a “jurisprudential rule” alongside other rules; b) as a “governing principle” that restricts the unrestricted scope of proofs; and c), at a deeper level, as a “supra-jurisprudential principle” that supervises the entire Islamic legislative system and is regarded as the spirit governing its laws.

The consequences and implications of accepting the rule of justice extend beyond deriving subsidiary rulings and include functions such as: 1. enabling the evaluation and criticism of existing jurisprudential rulings; 2. providing solutions to emerging issues in view of changes in customary instances of injustice according to time and place; 3. explaining the foundations of important rules such as the “[[no-harm rule]]” and the “[[rule of negating intolerable hardship|negation of intolerable hardship]]” and referring them to the superior principle of justice; and 4. directly influencing the orientation of jurisprudential understanding. The manner in which the rule affects jurisprudential understanding has been interpreted in two ways: one approach regards justice as an effective indicator in understanding the proofs and considers it inferior to a jurisprudential rule, while the other regards it as one of the fundamental objectives of the Sharia and superior to a jurisprudential rule.

Relying on the principle of justice, some authors have also addressed more fundamental matters, such as examining whether a narration was issued, determining the circumstances of its issuance, establishing contextual restriction or unrestrictedness, and similar issues. Changes in fatwas on matters such as [[child marriage]], [[copyright]], [[moral rights]], compensation for the depreciation of money, and the reclamation of land through modern technologies have likewise been regarded as consequences of recognizing the authority of the rule of justice.

== Authority of the Rule of Justice ==
The authority of the rule of justice is a position held by a range of jurists who, relying on certain proofs, incorporate this rule into ijtihad and give it precedence over other proofs. According to this group of jurists, a “jurisprudential rule” has two criteria: comprehensiveness, meaning applicability throughout various chapters of jurisprudence, and the capacity to create a non-stable conflict with other proofs and restrict their unrestricted scope. Possessing both characteristics, the rule of justice governs the generality of other proofs and qualifies them.<ref>Ali-Akbarian, The Rule of Justice in Imami Jurisprudence, pp. 31-32.</ref>

According to some views, the rule of justice goes beyond an ordinary jurisprudential rule, such as the no-harm rule, and, as a principle and universal major premise governing all rulings of the Sharia, even treats jurisprudential rules as its subordinate instances. Accordingly, the rule of justice is intended in a broad and comprehensive sense that also encompasses functions extending beyond and differing from those of a jurisprudential rule. This expression, with the same broad approach, has appeared in contemporary works.

=== Governance of the Proofs of Justice over Other Proofs of Rulings ===
One method of explaining the precedence of justice is based on the theory of the governance of proofs. According to this view, definitive proofs indicating that the Sharia is just govern proofs from which an unjust ruling is inferred. If a ruling derived from a narration is intrinsically unjust, its proof ceases to be authoritative; if its unrestricted application is unjust, it is restricted by the proofs of justice.<ref>Ali-Akbarian, The Rule of Justice in Imami Jurisprudence, pp. 76-77.</ref>

Some have explained this governance by emphasizing the ontological status of justice within rulings and referring rules such as “no harm” to it. They maintain that justice is an inviolable principle in creation and legislation, and that rules such as the “negation of harm” and the “negation of hardship,” which take precedence over other proofs, are themselves founded on the superior principle of justice. Therefore, the rule of justice, as the foundation of these rules, governs all proofs of primary rulings.<ref>Mirzaei and Omidifard, “The Relationship of the Rules of Equity, Fairness, and Justice with the No-Harm Rule,” p. 27.</ref>

Others have explained this precedence on the basis of restriction and specification through rationally perceived injustice. The proofs negating injustice restrict religious rulings to the domain of “non-injustice.” Therefore, when the unrestricted application of a conjectural proof—its apparent meaning—leads, according to customary understanding, to an unjust ruling, the proofs negating injustice restrict that application.<ref>Sorami, “An Examination of the Authority of the Rule of Justice in Textual and Non-Textual Cases,” pp. 62-64.</ref>

== Effects of the Authority of the Rule of Justice ==
Two kinds of effects may be considered for the authority of the rule of justice in deriving subsidiary jurisprudential rulings: first, its effect on fundamental discussions and principles of ijtihad situated within principles of jurisprudence and the foundations of jurisprudence; and second, its effect on deriving subsidiary jurisprudential rulings, such as establishing the [[child marriage|impermissibility of marriage to a minor girl]],<ref>Mosallinejad et al., “Ethical Reflections on the Permissibility of Marriage to a Minor Girl and Its Conflict with the Rule of Justice,” pp. 104-105.</ref> establishing [[copyright]],<ref>Soltani Renani, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” pp. 139-140.</ref> and the obligation to compensate for the [[depreciation of money]].<ref>Saeedi, “The Theory of Compensating for the Depreciation of Money,” p. 94.</ref>

=== Influence on Usuli and Jurisprudential Rules ===
In its broad sense, the rule of justice also affects principles of jurisprudence. This rule supports “[[rational exemption]]”—the impropriety of punishment without prior explanation—and the “[[negation of obligations beyond one’s capacity]],” because punishing an inculpably ignorant person and commanding an act beyond an individual’s ability are, from the perspective of reason, instances of injustice.<ref>Soltani Renani, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” pp. 133-134.</ref>

Another author argues that the “[[no-harm rule]]” is an instance of the more general rule of “justice.” Evidence for this claim is that prohibited harm in jurisprudence is unjust harm, and the criterion of justice and injustice must be used to identify it.<ref>Tabatabaei, “The Relationship between the Rule of Justice and Other Jurisprudential Rules,” pp. 3-9.</ref> In response to the objection of “specification of the majority” concerning the no-harm rule, prominent jurists have regarded the criterion for negated harm as its being unjust, such that just harm, such as khums and retaliation, does not fall within the rule’s negation.<ref>Tabatabaei, “The Relationship between the Rule of Justice and Other Jurisprudential Rules,” pp. 155-158.</ref>

=== Application of Justice in Directing Jurisprudential Understanding ===
According to some jurists, justice is not a “jurisprudential rule” but an “indicator” employed in ijtihad to understand proofs and functioning as an auxiliary criterion for interpreting texts. The difference is that a “rule” is a source of legal inference, whereas an “indicator” is an instrument for interpreting other proofs.<ref>Ziaifar, “Forms of Employing Justice in Jurisprudence and Ijtihad,” p. 308.</ref>

According to this view, some applications of justice as an indicator are as follows:

# Weakening confidence in the issuance of a narration, such as rejecting narrations permitting devices for circumventing usury because of their unjust content;
# Determining the circumstances of a narration’s issuance, such as interpreting the narration “You and your property belong to your father” as a disciplinary statement rather than one issued in a legislative capacity;
# Establishing contextual restriction in the unrestricted scope of a proof, such as limiting the “right of passage” to cases that do not cause injustice to the owner of an orchard;
# Removing ambiguity from a text, such as preferring the meaning of the Imam’s “institutional ownership” over “personal ownership” of anfal;
# Restricting a ruling to a particular period, such as limiting narrations permitting anfal to the Shia to the era of unjust governments; and
# Preference when proofs conflict, such as giving precedence to a narration compatible with justice over one that conflicts with it.<ref>Ziaifar, “Forms of Employing Justice in Jurisprudence and Ijtihad,” pp. 309-319.</ref>

According to another view, justice is a “supra-jurisprudential principle” and one of the [[objectives of Sharia|objectives of Islam]] that a jurist must consider throughout every stage of inference. This principle guides the jurist in interpreting conjectural evidence, directly serves as the basis of a ruling when deriving secondary rulings, and, when an explicit text conflicts with the principle of justice, acts as an important indicator directing the jurist toward definitive rational evidence. If the purport of the text is established as unjust, the jurist may set it aside on the basis of that rational proof. Thus, without departing from the framework of principles of jurisprudence, the issuance of a ruling contrary to the objectives of Sharia is prevented.<ref>Abdolrezaei Dastgerdi et al., “The Nature and Status of Social Justice in the Process of Deriving Islamic Legal Rulings, with Emphasis on Imami Jurisprudence,” pp. 100-102.</ref>

=== Evaluating Existing Jurisprudential Rulings ===
One of the principal functions of the rule of justice is to evaluate existing rulings. According to [[Morteza Motahhari]], justice belongs to the chain of the “causes” of rulings, not their “effects”; that is, a ruling itself must be evaluated according to the criterion of justice.<ref>Motahhari, Notes of Professor Motahhari, vol. 1, p. 52.</ref> On this basis, he rejected the unrestricted scope of a husband’s right to divorce where it leads to injustice against the wife—retaining her with the intention of causing harm—and regarded it as conflicting with the governing principle of justice.<ref>Motahhari, The System of Women’s Rights in Islam, p. 273.</ref>

Some have extended the scope of this rule even to devotional matters. They maintain that wudu or tayammum performed with usurped water or soil is invalid because such an act constitutes unjust appropriation, and an act that is intrinsically reprehensible cannot, as an act of worship, bring a person closer to God or be commanded by the Lawgiver.<ref>Soltani Renani, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” pp. 138-140.</ref>

=== Application of the Rule to Emerging Issues ===
Another application of the rule of justice is discovering the rulings governing emerging subjects. For example, under present conditions in which the [[reclamation of land through modern technologies]] is easily possible, the unrestricted ruling of ownership may result in injustice in the distribution of wealth, and the rule of negation of injustice restricts that unrestricted ruling.<ref>Sorami, “The Jurisprudential Rule of Negating Injustice in the Holy Quran,” pp. 48-50.</ref>

In the same context, some authors maintain that although the “concept” of justice is fixed and innate, its “instances” may change according to time and place. Drawing on the Quranic concept of ma‘ruf, they argue that a ruling such as [[child marriage|marriage to a minor girl]] may not have been considered unjust in a primitive society, but today, in view of its negative consequences, it may constitute a manifest instance of injustice; this change in the instance requires reconsideration of the ruling.<ref>Mosallinejad et al., “Ethical Reflections on the Permissibility of Marriage to a Minor Girl and Its Conflict with the Rule of Justice,” pp. 102-103.</ref>

== Arguments from the Quran and Sunna ==
Numerous verses have been invoked to establish the authority of the rule of justice, including [[Verse 90 of Sura al-Nahl]]: “Indeed, Allah commands justice and benevolence”; [[Verse 182 of Sura Al Imran|Verse 182 of Sura Al Imran]]: “Allah is not unjust to His servants”; [[Verse 25 of Sura al-Hadid|Verse 25 of Sura al-Hadid]]: “We certainly sent Our messengers with clear proofs and sent down with them the Book and the balance so that people may uphold justice”; [[Verse 115 of Sura al-An‘am|Verse 115 of Sura al-An‘am]]; and [[Verse 108 of Sura Al Imran|Verse 108 of Sura Al Imran]]. In addition to these verses, numerous narrations have also been regarded as proofs of this rule.<ref>Ibn Babawayh, al-Tawhid, p. 96; Ibn Babawayh, Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, vol. 2, p. 44; Tamimi Amadi, Ghurar al-Hikam, vol. 1, pp. 26-28; Hurr al-Amili, Wasa’il al-Shi‘a, vol. 27, p. 171; Majlisi, Rawdat al-Muttaqin fi Sharh Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, vol. 8, p. 46.</ref>

The authors maintain that these transmitted proofs, by presenting God as commanding justice, negating every form of injustice from Him, and identifying justice as the objective of religion and the source of society’s vitality, provide strong support for the authority of the rule of justice in jurisprudence.<ref>Mosallinejad, Sadat Kiyaei, and Vojdani, “Ethical Reflections on the Permissibility of Marriage to a Minor Girl and Its Conflict with the Rule of Justice,” p. 101.</ref> They also infer, by citing verses that identify the establishment of equity as the purpose of sending messengers, that a religion whose objective is the establishment of justice cannot contain injustice within its rulings and that these verses exclude every unjust ruling from the domain of the Sharia.<ref>Soltani Renani, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” pp. 130-131.</ref> According to others, the unrestricted and general character of these verses transforms them into a general principle of inference applicable throughout all chapters of jurisprudence, on the basis of which every ruling incompatible with this principle may be negated.<ref>Asghari, “Justice as a Jurisprudential and Legal Rule,” pp. 5-6.</ref>

=== Necessity of Comparing Narrations with the Quran ===
Some have formulated another argument by combining the “narrations on comparison” with the Quranic verses. According to widely transmitted narrations, hadiths contrary to the Quran lack authority. The Quran, meanwhile, absolutely and without admitting specification, negates every form of injustice from God. Customary and rational understanding is the authority for determining whether a narration conflicts with this Quranic principle. Therefore, if a ruling derived from a narration is regarded as unjust according to customary understanding, that narration lacks authority because it conflicts with the Quranic principle of justice and must be discarded or interpreted differently. In other words, the Quran states, “God does not wrong His servants”; this means the kind of injustice that rational people understand to be unjust. Consequently, if a narration is unjust according to rational understanding, comparison with these Quranic verses causes it to lose its authority, and it must be set aside.<ref>Sanei, An Approach to Women’s Rights, pp. 166-167; Ali-Akbarian, The Rule of Justice in Imami Jurisprudence, pp. 260-274.</ref>

== Arguments from Reason and the Practice of Rational People ==

=== Rule of Correlation ===
Some authors establish the authority of the rule of justice by invoking the [[rule of correlation|correlation between the judgment of reason and the ruling of the Sharia]]. Since the Adliyya believe in intrinsic rational goodness and evil and regard reason’s independent apprehension of the goodness of justice and the evil of injustice as its clearest instance, this rational judgment also acquires religious authority through the rule of correlation.<ref>Qabel Jami, The Rule of Justice and Negation of Injustice, pp. 10-103.</ref> According to this argument, prior to any religious declaration, reason understands that justice is perfection and injustice is deficiency. Since God’s acts, including legislation, are free from deficiency, they necessarily revolve around justice. This rational foundation both grants the rule of justice governance over other rulings and transforms it into an independent source.<ref>Soltani Renani, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” pp. 128-129; Mirzaei and Omidifard, “The Relationship of the Rules of Equity, Fairness, and Justice with the No-Harm Rule,” pp. 19-21.</ref>

=== Practice of Rational People ===
The [[practice of rational people]] is also among the sources invoked by proponents of the authority of the rule of justice. According to this argument, justice is a principle shared and accepted by all rational people throughout the world, and their continuous practice is based on formulating laws according to it. Since the Lawgiver is the foremost of rational beings and His rulings are not separate from rational principles, this rational practice has been endorsed by the Lawgiver and can serve as proof of the authority of the rule of justice in jurisprudence.<ref>Asghari, “Justice as a Jurisprudential and Legal Rule,” p. 8.</ref>

Others have argued through conceptual analysis that “justice” in religious texts is not a specifically religious meaning but is the same rational and customary concept; otherwise, commanding it would be futile and amount to seeking what has already been obtained, as in a necessary proposition conditioned by its predicate. Therefore, when God commands justice, He commands everything that rational people consider just, and this customary understanding permits the jurist to identify instances of justice in every era by relying on rational understanding.<ref>Ali-Akbarian, The Rule of Justice in Imami Jurisprudence, pp. 52 and 329.</ref>

==Footnotes==
{{Footnotes}}
== Resources ==
{{References}}
* The Holy Quran.
* Abdolrezaei Dastgerdi, Mohammad, Ali-Mazhar Qaramaleki, and Sayyid Hossein Hashemi, “The Nature and Status of Social Justice in the Process of Deriving Islamic Legal Rulings, with Emphasis on Imami Jurisprudence,” Islamic Jurisprudence and Law Research, no. 77, 1403 SH.
* Ali-Akbarian, Hasan Ali, The Rule of Justice in Imami Jurisprudence, Qom, Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy, 1387 SH.
* Alidoust, Abu al-Qasim, “The Role of Justice in the First and Second Processes of Inference,” Fiqh, no. 81, 1393 SH.
* Asghari, Sayyid Mohammad, “Justice as a Jurisprudential and Legal Rule,” Private Law Studies, no. 9, 1388 SH.
* Hurr al-Amili, Mohammad ibn Hasan, Tafsil Wasa’il al-Shi‘a ila Tahsil Masa’il al-Shari‘a, Qom, Al al-Bayt (a) Institute, 1409 AH.
* Khomeini, Ruhollah, Kitab al-Bay‘, Tehran, Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, 1382 SH.
* Majlisi, Mohammad Taqi, Rawdat al-Muttaqin fi Sharh Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, Qom, Kushanpur Islamic Culture Foundation, 1406 AH.
* Mirzaei, Samira and Abdullah Omidifard, “The Relationship of the Rules of Equity, Fairness, and Justice with the No-Harm Rule,” Research and Studies in Islamic Sciences, no. 60, 1403 SH.
* Mosallinejad, Maryam, Sayyid Mohsen Sadat Kiyaei, and Fatemeh Vojdani, “Ethical Reflections on the Permissibility of Marriage to a Minor Girl and Its Conflict with the Rule of Justice,” Ethical Reflections, no. 10, 1401 SH.
* Motahhari, Morteza, Notes of Professor Motahhari, Tehran, Sadra, 1390 SH.
* Motahhari, Morteza, The System of Women’s Rights in Islam, Tehran, Sadra, 1386 SH.
* Qabel Jami, Hadi, The Rule of Justice and Negation of Injustice, Qom, Fiqh al-Thaqalayn, 1390 SH.
* Saeedi, Sayyid Mohsen, “The Theory of Compensating for the Depreciation of Money,” Ahl al-Bayt (a) Jurisprudence, no. 45, 1385 SH.
* Sanei, Yousef, An Approach to Women’s Rights, Qom, Fiqh al-Thaqalayn, 1390 SH.
* Shaykh Saduq, Mohammad ibn Ali, al-Tawhid, Qom, Society of Seminary Teachers, 1398 AH.
* Shaykh Saduq, Mohammad ibn Ali, Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih, Society of Seminary Teachers, 1413 AH.
* Shirvani, Ali, “The Status of Justice in the Structure of Jurisprudential Knowledge from the Perspective of Martyr Motahhari and Its Impact on the Relationship between Ethics and Jurisprudence,” Revelatory Ethics, no. 19, 1399 SH.
* Soltani Renani, Mohammad, “The Application of the Rule of Negation of Injustice in Justice-Oriented Jurisprudence,” Contemporary Comparative Legal Studies, no. 21, 1399 SH.
* Sorami, Sayf Allah, “An Examination of the Authority of the Rule of Justice in Textual and Non-Textual Cases,” Fiqh, no. 87, 1395 SH.
* Sorami, Sayf Allah, “The Jurisprudential Rule of Negating Injustice in the Holy Quran,” Quran, Jurisprudence, and Islamic Law, no. 12, 1399 SH.
* Tabatabaei, Sayyid Mahmoud, “The Relationship between the Rule of Justice and Other Jurisprudential Rules,” Fiqh, no. 87, 1395 SH.
* Tamimi Amadi, Abd al-Wahid, Ghurar al-Hikam, Qom, Dar al-Kitab al-Islami, 1410 AH.
* Varaei, Sayyid Javad, “Political Jurisprudence and the Primacy of Justice in Governance,” Political Science, no. 76, 1395 SH.
* Ziaifar, Saeed, “Forms of Employing Justice in Jurisprudence and Ijtihad,” Jurisprudential Research, no. 17, 1393 SH.

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