Yousef Saanei: Difference between revisions
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The Principle of Justice is one of the important and influential rules in Sa'anei's jurisprudence.<ref>Sa'anei, An Approach to Women's Rights, pp. 166-167.</ref> According to this rule, a ruling that contradicts justice could not be issued by the Sacred Legislator, and religious sources such as the Quran and Sunnah serve to express the general criteria and standards of justice and oppression, while delegating the determination of instances and details to custom (Urf) and rationality (Aql). The Legislator considers custom as a criterion and binds himself to the judgment of custom, except in cases where the custom is facing an explicit religious text (Nass). Inferring religious rulings, as well as issuing a fatwa, jurist and Mujtahid must apply customary criteria of his era and conform religious standards to that. If the rational custom of society considers something to be oppression, the jurist cannot present it as justice, and vice versa; unless a definitive explicit religious text refuses it.<ref>Qabil (Jami), The Principle of Justice and the Negation of Oppression, 147-174.</ref> | The Principle of Justice is one of the important and influential rules in Sa'anei's jurisprudence.<ref>Sa'anei, An Approach to Women's Rights, pp. 166-167.</ref> According to this rule, a ruling that contradicts justice could not be issued by the Sacred Legislator, and religious sources such as the Quran and Sunnah serve to express the general criteria and standards of justice and oppression, while delegating the determination of instances and details to custom (Urf) and rationality (Aql). The Legislator considers custom as a criterion and binds himself to the judgment of custom, except in cases where the custom is facing an explicit religious text (Nass). Inferring religious rulings, as well as issuing a fatwa, jurist and Mujtahid must apply customary criteria of his era and conform religious standards to that. If the rational custom of society considers something to be oppression, the jurist cannot present it as justice, and vice versa; unless a definitive explicit religious text refuses it.<ref>Qabil (Jami), The Principle of Justice and the Negation of Oppression, 147-174.</ref> | ||
Citing verses such as [[Surah An-Nahl, Verse 90|“Indeed, Allah orders justice”]] (Nahl, 90) and other verses ([[Surah Al-An'am, Verse 115|An'am, 115]], [[Surah Fussilat, Verse 46|Fussilat, 46]], and [[Surah An-Nisa, Verse 40|Nisa, 40]], [[Surah Ghafir, Verse 31|Ghafir, 31]]), Sa'anei believes that the system of God's commands is organized | Citing verses such as [[Surah An-Nahl, Verse 90|“Indeed, Allah orders justice”]] (Nahl, 90) and other verses ([[Surah Al-An'am, Verse 115|An'am, 115]], [[Surah Fussilat, Verse 46|Fussilat, 46]], and [[Surah An-Nisa, Verse 40|Nisa, 40]], [[Surah Ghafir, Verse 31|Ghafir, 31]]), Sa'anei believes that the system of God's commands is organized in terms of justice and that the standard of every religious command is justice. Therefore, according to the aforementioned verses and the priority of the Quran over hadiths and the command to discard hadiths contrary to the Quran,<ref>Kulayni, Al-Kafi, vol. 1, pp. 69-70.</ref> if the customary conception of justice is incompatible with the general or absolute edicts in hadiths or the explicit text of an uncertainly-said hadith (Zanni al-Sudur), the customary conception of justice must be taken priority over hadiths and the ones containing an unjust ruling (on customary conception) must be discarded or interpreted (Ta'wil).<ref>Sa'anei, An Approach to Women's Rights, pp. 166-167; Ali-Akbarian, The Principle of Justice in Imami Fiqh, pp. 260-274.</ref> | ||
Sa'anei | Sa'anei utilizes this rule in issuing fatwa; for example, he does not accept the absolute nature of evidence regarding the man's right to divorce and considers cases such as divorce without reason by the man or the man's refusal to divorce in Khul' divorce (when the woman is averse and has gifted or returned the dowry) as oppressive from the conventional perspective. This is because, conventionally, depriving the woman of choice and granting absolute choice to the man based solely on gender is unjust; therefore, one must abandon the absolute application of the narration "Divorce is in the hand of the one who takes the leg,"<ref>Sa'anei, An Approach to Women's Rights, pp. 552-553.</ref> noting that some early scholars such as Ibn Zuhrah al-Halabi<ref>Ibn Zuhrah al-Halabi, Ghunyat al-Nuzu' ila Ilmay al-Usul wa al-Furu', p. 375.</ref> and Shaykh al-Tusi<ref>Tusi, Al-Nihayah fi Mujarrad al-Fiqh wa al-Fatawa, p. 529.</ref> also considered divorce in Khul' to be obligatory for the man. | ||
Another example is the rejection of the blood money (Diya) of a woman being half; Sa'anei considers this ruling unjust from a conventional perspective given the equality of men and women in human identity and social and economic rights (confirmed by reason, the Book, and the Sunnah), and believes that narrations indicating the halving of a woman's Diya are discarded due to their contradiction with justice (the Quranic standard for rulings).<ref>Sa'anei, Equality of Diya, pp. 62-64.</ref> | Another example is the rejection of the blood money (Diya) of a woman being half; Sa'anei considers this ruling unjust from a conventional perspective given the equality of men and women in human identity and social and economic rights (confirmed by reason, the Book, and the Sunnah), and believes that narrations indicating the halving of a woman's Diya are discarded due to their contradiction with justice (the Quranic standard for rulings).<ref>Sa'anei, Equality of Diya, pp. 62-64.</ref> | ||