Certain terms will often be seen in this book. The readers unfamiliar with the meaning of such terms, in the context of this book, may not have the desired benefit from their translations. Thus, an explanation will help them to have a better and more clear idea of the applications of such terms. A specialist in the Islamic Laws, 'Mujtahid' and the collection of 'fatwas' are the ones which require a detailed explanation more than any other terms.
The translation of a Mujtahid as a specialist in the Islamic Laws is almost good enough, but if one would know how one becomes a Mujtahid, he will no doubt realize the difference between one's idea about a 'Mujtahid' perceived from the translation of the term and what takes one to become a 'Mujtahid'.
One may summarize what a Mujtahid faces during his task of Ejtihad into; environmental obstacles; the subject matter of Ejtihad and the achievement of moral and learning credentials. We do not have to mention what a Mujtahid has to study before he enters into the substance of the subject, the study of the texts or the sources of the Islamic Laws, for the study of the philosophy of language, general history, the history of learning, general logic, and philosophy and the philosophy of social Laws and jurisprudence all are common knowledge. A student and one with some experience in education can easily tell us what takes one to satisfactorily study these subjects.
The earliest time to complete one's courses of Ph. D., as we know, is in one's late twenties.
A Mujtahid before entering into the substance of the subject of Ejtihad must be able to form out of his studies of the subjects mention above, a world pattern purely Islamic and acceptable to the Islamic philosophy and theology. The subject of Ejtihad has two main branches; the principles of jurisprudence (usulul fiq) and Laws, (Shari'a). It is beyond the scope of this brief foreword, to present to the readers an account of even the smallest topics from the subject of Ejtihad because of their technical nature and complicated forms. Our only choice would be to simply describe (a) what a student of the subject of Ejtihad does during all those years and (b) how he achieves learning credentials.
It takes one six years from the day he attends classes on the subject of the principles of jurisprudence to the end of this subject. After this if he is lucky, and had not dropped out, he starts teaching the same subject to others. Practically, such people form a very small percentage of the students attending with him on the subject.
In the school of Najaf, Iraq or Qum, Iran classes and teachers of the subject of the principles of jurisprudence are not restricted or limited. Anyone capable of teaching may start a class anywhere in some Mosque anytime. There no other factors exist to make the students to attend the lectures of a certain teacher on the principles of jurisprudence except the degree of the teacher's knowledge of the subject and his communicating skill. Because of the kind of freedom students are free to attend any class anywhere and find the teacher of their choice.
The best teacher will have the greatest number of students attending his lectures. There are people who start lectures on the subject and one may see few people attending his lectures but not very long after one can see no one attending his lectures but the teacher himself. If a teacher can prove his capability in the subject, more people will attend his lectures.
Also, if a student who attends the lectures of a teacher can raise relevant question and challenge the teacher's ability of presenting evidence in support of his point, he also will have potential credit for his intelligence and it may damage the learning credentials of the teacher. In this way at this stage every one's learning credentials practically become public to the intelligent students.
If a lucky teacher can complete teaching this subject by the help of using the text books on the subject, which is very rare to happen, he then starts lectures on the same subject without using a text book in the class. Text books on this subject are numerous and of different styles. Traditionally the specialist on this subject would always express their own new findings in the matter in the form of footnotes and explanations to the existing text books of the most scholarly and technical styles. But since the early sixties the prominent scholars have changed the tradition of footnote writing into independent form of scholarly works on the subject.
The learning credentials of a successful teacher cannot give him, at this stage, the right to be considered as man of independent views. For his learning ability of teaching by the help of text books still cannot be considered mature or 'hujjah' which means having authoritative power.
Teaching successfully, without the help of text books, with the ability of attracting the greatest number of intelligent student to one's lectures on the vast subject of the principles of jurisprudence, one will have the right to be called an Ayalullah, which in this context means having the right to be considered independent in one's views of due authoritative power.
Such teacher who are just a few in the community of the religious scholars are well known to all the intelligent students because of the teachers successfully completing his lectures on the subject with of hard work to meet the avalanche of the intelligent students challenges against the credibility of the teachers views on the subject, for at this stage a teacher logically and traditionally must form his own views in all the topics of the whole subject.
This requires that every single point in the subject must satisfactorily and with the best possible logical accuracy be analyzed.
The whole matter analyzed during the long years of teaching with the help of the text books and then without such help must he organized and put back together to form one's view point in every topic. One's view point as such are a product of great many far reaching general principles, each individually formed out of a whole process of logical inference on the topic. At the same time since such general principles in many cases are inter related, for a practical Legal purpose one can very often find more than one such general concepts of decisive guide line to determine the precept of a single act in practice.
There is no doubt, that the task of handling abstract general principles for practical reasons is not easy, especially, when it comes to supporting one's final decision in a legal matter by the help of more than one such principle. If one can line up a great number of such principles as a support behind one's decision in a Legal matter, his learning ability to the same degree, will be entitled to scholarly recognition and credibility.
One who can successfully complete his Lectures on the whole subject of the principles of jurisprudence independent of the help of the text books without leaving untouched any of the others' views in every single topic, regardless of how many they may have been, and accurately analyzing and answering them as well as teaching the whole text of Shari'a which re4required much more pains taking scholarly work, sharper intelligence and a longer time then will be called a 'Mujtahid', Mujtahids are practically different from each other. A Mujtahid in the sense just mentioned does not practically publish his legal view points in a book form called one's collection of 'Fatwas'.
Only those who have successfully completed their lectures on the sources and texts of the Islamic Laws in the light of the principles of jurisprudence which usually takes one about eight to ten years, provided, their other credentials are well established have the right to publish the collection of their legal views. The amount of labor require in The final stage can some how be figured out from the volume of literature involved.
(1) The scholarly examination and study of hadith, i.e. 34000 statements published in the form of Was'il Ashshi'a in more than twenty volumes each having at least 500 pages.
(2) The biography of all the thousand of narrators of these Ahadith also published in more than twenty volumes.
(3) Also using one's final view points formed out of his studies of the principles of jurisprudence to make sure that the utmost possible scholarly effort is made in issuing a final decision about each single legal rule. At the final stage the degree of criticisms and challenges of the intelligent students against the points in the lectures of an Ayatullah, a grand Mujtahid, becomes greater than ever for a student who can raise relevant objection at this stage has to be learned enough, who on the other hand at the same time will receive a great degree of credentials for his learning ability, also, as part of the system it encourages a Mujtahid not to leave unchecked all the possible questions against his 'Fatwas', final decision in the legal rules. No single rule in this book is recorded without being examined in the light of the principles of Ejtihad, the results of the above mentioned long years of scholarly efforts, and in the best possible logical manner.
Although, every Mujtahid forms each single rule of the collection of his 'Fatwas' independently and uses all the relevant principles to clarify each rule and make sure that no doubt what the Islamic Shari'a requires people to do or stay away from. In practice, most of the rules in this book coincide with the 'Fatwas' of all the Mujtahids. Only a small number of them which are mostly abstract one's may not coincide the 'Fatwas' of all the Mujtahids.