ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Spirituality of the Shi‘ism and Other Discourses Discourse Nine: The General Framework of Ownership Beings that we see upon the earth—comprising plants, animals, and humans—are generally engaged in activity and effort. They each endeavor outside the spheres of their selves to preserve their lives and obtain useful and beneficial things. No inactive, silent creation may be found in the wide expanse of existence.

Among all these efforts, no activity is performed without the intention to gain something. The actions observed in various types of plants are intended to preserve them from harm, induce growth, and help them to propagate. The actions of the varieties of animals and humans are motivated by the aim to acquire benefits—even if these benefits are internal or imagined—and this subject is not open to doubt.

The grounds for struggles and endeavors Active beings, animals, and humans naturally understand that using available materials for self-preservation and resolving natural needs is not possible unless the materials are allotted to them and they are not in use by others. In other words, a single action cannot have two agents. This is the basis for all these struggles and endeavors.

For this reason, humans and other active beings, whose basis for action we understand, prevent others from appropriating and intruding into that which they earmark as their own. This clear and indisputable principle is ownership; something that no human doubts. This is what the possessive “lām” [ل] means in Arabic in word groups such as: هذا لي، هذا لك؛ لي ان افعل کذا؛ لك ان تفعل کذا. Confirmation of this obvious principle is the conflict seen among animals.

They fight with their enemies to protect their nests or lairs and their food or prey and if their mates or offspring are faced with danger they enter into battle.[^1] Another proof is that children fight to preserve their food and other possessions. It is even seen among infants that they battle with their peers over their mothers’ breasts. Is ownership instinctive [fitrī]? In accordance with their fitrah and instincts, humans live communally.

However, the pillars of human social life, which is born of the faculty of fitrah, cannot be established and stay firm without this faculty. The only thing the society can do is to amend those fitrī principles and arrange them in the form of social norms. Thus, the fitrī principle of ownership attains various types and designations.