Taqlid: Meaning & Reality
Hassan Tabatabai
Written by Sayyid Muhammed Rizvi
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Some General Terms
Wajib - obligatory, necessary, incumbent. An act
which must be performed. You will be rewarded for performing it and punished
for neglecting it, e.g., the daily prayers, the fasting of Ramadhan.
Ihtiyat wajib - precautionarily obligatory. Its
significance is the same as that of wajib with the difference that in the
problems where a mujtahid says it is "precautionarily obligatory",
one has the option of leaving his taqlid (following) in this particular problem
and following the rulings of the second-best mujtahid in that problem.
Haram - forbidden, prohibited. It is necessary to
abstain from the acts which are haram. If someone performs a haram act, he will
be punished, e.g., eating pork.
Sunnat, Mustahab - recommendable, desirable. The
acts whose neglect is not punished, but whose performance is rewarded, e.g.,
the call for prayers (adhan).
Makruh - reprehensible, disliked. The acts whose
performance is not punished, but whose avoidance is rewarded, e.g., eating in
the state of janabat.
Ja'iz, Halal, Mubah - permitted, allowed, lawful,
legal. The acts or the thing which are permitted and lawful. There is no reward
for performing it and no punishment for neglecting it, e.g., drinking tea.
Mubah is exclusively used for lawful things, not for permitted actions.
What is taqlid?
Taqlid literally means "to follow
(someone)", "to imitate". In Islamic legal terminology it means
to follow a mujtahid in religious laws and commandment as he has derived them.
A mujtahid is a person who is an expert of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); he is
also called a faqih. In order to see where and why the practice of taqlid
gained acceptance in the Shi'i world, it is necessary first to explain it in
some detail.
Man's nature dictates that he can only function
properly within a society, and a society depends for its existence on laws and
regulations. Islam teaches that Allah has sent a series of messengers and
prophets with divine laws for man's guidance from the very beginning of his
existence. The final Messenger and Prophet was Muhammad bin `Abdullah (may the
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his Household) who brought the
last and most perfect of God's religious messages, Islam, which is to serve as
a guide for mankind till the end of time.
Allah is the Creator of man and the universe, and
so only He can, or has the right, to make laws for us. The prophets and
messengers are merely the teachers and proclaimers of Allah's laws and
regulations; they cannot make laws themselves. The teachings of Shi'ah Islam
say that the Imam is the successor of the Prophet and acts as the preserver and
interpreter of Islam and its divine law, the shari'ah. In the earliest period
of Islamic history, the Prophet guided the Muslim community (ummah) in every
step it made, and was there to solve all its difficulties. From the time of the
first Imam, `Ali, until the death of the eleventh, the Imam Hasan al-`Askari,
peace be upon them, the Shi'ah received guidance directly from the Imams. Then,
during the period of the Lesser Occultation (al-ghaybatu 's-sughra) of the
Twelfth Imam, he himself successively appointed four representatives1 who acted
as the link between the Imam and his Shi'ahs. However, when the present Imam,
peace be upon him, went into his Greater Occultation (al-ghaybatu 'l-kubra) in
329/941 in obedience to Allah's command, the Shi'ah were obliged to observe
taqlid in their religious affairs.
Is taqlid reasonable in a time of widespread
education?
It is not always reasonable to follow others and
to hold uncritical faith in their opinions. We can distinguish four possible
forms that imitation could take:
a) that of an ignorant person by an ignorant
person,
b) that of a learned person by a more learned
person,
c) that of an ignorant person by a learned person,
d) that of a learned person by a less learned
person.
It is quite clear that the first three forms of
imitation are unreasonable and can serve no purpose. However, the fourth kind
is obviously not only reasonable, but also necessary and a matter of common
sense; in our everyday life we follow and imitate others in many things; we
like to feel that we are taking the advice of experts in matters outside our
own knowledge. Someone who wishes to build a house explains the basic idea of
what he wants to his builder and then submits to his advice as to how he should
go about the actual construction; the invalid follows the treatment advised by
his doctor; a litigant consults a lawyer when drawing up his case for
presentation in court. The examples are abundant; in most cases the advice is
taken voluntarily, but sometimes the citizen in a country may be required by
law to seek expert advice and act upon it, before, for example, he is allowed
to take some particularly dangerous drug. The clearest example is obviously in
case of a legal dispute between two parties, where they are required to take
their grievances before a judge and abide by his decision if they cannot settle
their dispute amicably. The practice of taqlid is an example of the same kind:
the person who is not an expert in jurisprudence is legally required to follow
the instructions of the expert, i.e., the mujtahid. And in this case the
requirement is an obligation which must be observed, for it is an essential
part of the divine law.
It should be observed that taqlid pertains only to
the realm of the shari'ah; there can be no taqlid in the matters of belief
(usulu 'd-din). A Muslim must hold his belief in the fundamentals of his
religion after attaining conviction of their truth through examination and reflection.
The Qur'an very clearly condemns those who follow others blindly in matters of
belief:
And when it is said to them, "Come now to
what Allah has sent down, and the Messenger," they say, "Enough for
us is what we found our fathers doing". What, even if their fathers had
knowledge of naught and were not rightly-guided? (5:104)
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