The Validity of Certitude and the Toleration of its Authority

Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Seyed Mohammad Hasan Momeni

Assistant Professor, Department of Fiqh and Foundations of Islamic Law, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran, and Senior Lecturer in Advanced Islamic Jurisprudence Uṣūl-i Fiqh, Qom Seminary, Qom, Iran

10.22067/jfiqh.2024.84699.1660

Abstract

Most uṣūlī scholars hold that authority (ḥujjiyyat) and validity are intrinsic to absolute certitude (qaṭʿ-i ṭarīqī), and that certitude (qaṭʿ) is a complete cause for it. They believe that it is not possible to invalidate its authority or to issue a legal probation against acting upon such certitude, because doing so would entail denying its essential attributes, and would result in a contradiction either in reality or from the perspective of the person holding the certitude (qāṭiʿ). The present study, conducted through the descriptive-analytical method, seeks to prove the hypothesis that considering the possibility of double ignorance (jahl-i murakkab) within certitude, as well as the fact that certainty is temporally and conceptually subsequent to legal ruling, the real status of the matter and the position of the right of obedience (ḥaqq al-ṭāʿa), a legal prohibition against certitude similar to that applied to subjective certitude (qaṭʿ mawżūʿī) is acceptable without any impediment. This is because such practice of authority has, in fact, occurred in Sharīʿah as the obligation of the following is not an inherent quality of certitude, but rather a consequence of the right of obedience (ḥaqq al-ṭāʿah) and stems from the divine authority (ḥaqq-i mawlawiyyat), which is itself subject to the will of the sacred legislator for expansion or restriction. In addition, with the possibility of certitude aligning with double ignorance and its rank being posterior to the actual ontological reality of the object of certitude (maqtūʿ), the unity of subject (waḥdat-i mawżūʿī) as a necessary condition for contradiction is never established.

Keywords

• indicative certitude
• subjective certitude
• intrinsic authority
• prohibition of acting upon certitude
• guiding prohibition
• authoritative prohibition

Main Subjects

• Principles of jurisprudence

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