The Rules of Political Fiqh (Expediency) (book): Difference between revisions

The author identifies public interests as clear instances of expediency in Islam and mentions some of their important examples, such as: public offices, public activities in the fields of development, agriculture, industry, culture, and social affairs (*umur al-hisbah*), and the expropriation of private property and monopolies over public assets. He then discusses the "politico-social institutions of expediency," noting that in traditional fiqh, expediency was discussed under general headings. However, new developments and temporal conditions led to expediency being presented in the form of political and social institutions. He then examines twenty instances of the application of expediency in political and social institutions, such as: expediency and the institutions of the state, [[legislation|law]], justice, order, [[security]], property, family, charity, cooperation, defense, judiciary, the [[position of consultation in government|consultation (*shura*)]], enjoining good and forbidding evil, [[political parties|parties]], and the [[press]] (pp. 83-90).

However, Shia and Sunni Muslim philosophers, in the conflict between devotionalism and reason, have always preferred reason over devotionalism and have given primacy to reason in their conflict. The author then attempts to examine and resolve this conflict through the [[philosophy of fiqh]] (jurisprudential epistemology) but concludes that even if in jurisprudential derivation we use the nature of fiqh, the foundations of legal obligation, and the sources of the issuance of divine commands and prohibitions (philosophy of fiqh) instead of *usul al-fiqh*, we are still confined within the straits of devotionalism and cannot penetrate its enclosure. Therefore, even with the philosophy of fiqh, Shia fiqh cannot enter the open zone of expediency and the [[objectives of the Sharia]] like the Sunnis (such as [[al-Shatibi]] in his book "*[[Al-Muwafaqat (book)|Al-Muwafaqat]]*").

From Amid Zanjani's perspective, the Shari'a, reason, knowledge, experience, and custom are the main sources for identifying expediency, and he examines them from a jurisprudential viewpoint. In the first discussion, he calls revelation and the Shari'a—i.e., the Book and the Sunnah—the window that reveals the reality of expediency. He proposes examining expediency from the perspective of the Quran and Sunnah by explaining the rulings (the effects) and the expediencies of the rulings (the causes), and he provides examples from the Quran (32 instances) and the Sunnah, such as: cleanliness and purity, awareness in prayer, the evil of wine and gambling, the textually stated expediencies of prayer, the general expediencies in establishing Friday prayer, the harm of usury, expansion and contraction in wealth, the requital of actions, dress and modesty, and retribution (*qisas*). He then moves on to examine "the view of reason in discovering expediencies" and, while discussing the [[fixed and variable rulings]] of Islam, also brings the views of thinkers like Fayd Kashani, Allama Tabataba'i, and Shahid Murtada Mutahhari. For instance, according to Allama Tabataba'i, in variable rulings, it is reason that is the criterion for identifying expediency, right, and justice.