Consolidation and Completion of Imam Khomeini (ra)’s Viewpoint about Criticizing the Essential Authoritativeness of Certitude

Document Type : Research Article

Author

• Muḥammad Rasūl Āhangarān

10.22067/fiqh.v0i2.11100

Abstract

One of the discourses that is considered as indisputable among the scholars of jurisprudential principles (uṣūl al-fiqh) and has not been debated sufficiently is the discourse concerning the essential authoritativeness (ḥujjiyyat) of certitude (qaṭ‘). One of the few scholars who have meticulously and attentively criticized this
theory is the late Imam Khomeini (ra). The present research seeks to consolidate and complete his criticism. In this line, first the term “essential” (dhātī) is to be clarified and then the meaning of “authoritativeness” specified, so that by defining the meaning of certitude and differentiating it from knowledge (‘ilm) it may be clarified that his denying the authoritativeness of certitude, meaning accomplishment (munjaziyyat), is a praiseworthy act. Furthermore, it is to be clarified that authoritativeness, meaning excusableness (mu‘dhiriyyat), is not essential in certitude, either; for, it is of a conventional matter, and thereby, the non-essentiality of the authoritativeness of certitude is proved. Meanwhile, the validation of excusableness by the intellectuals is in fact for ignorance, and certitude, as assuming extensional union with it would possess this feature, and it (certitude) has no specificity for excusableness in itself.
Keywords: authority, authoritativeness, essential, certitude, intermediary certitude, excusableness, accomplishment.

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