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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Obligations and Prohibitions in Islamic Divine Law Part 2 Chapter 1: Learning Religious Knowledge It is obligatory upon every sane, mature person to learn the practical laws of Islam and the subsidiary obligations and prohibitions after confessing faith to the religion’s fundamentals and acquiring wholehearted belief in its primary principles.

One who has faith in the religion’s fundamentals will naturally find the complete conviction ( yaqin ) that is the realm of faith. He/she is then responsible for carrying out certain practical obligations and refraining from all prohibitions.

These laws are called “Mandatory Subsidiaries of the Religion” or “The Somatic Program.” Once a duty-bound person learns these laws and understands that God wants us to comply with them, she/he will be no longer excused to act contrarily and it will be obligatory upon him/her to exert all possible efforts in learning the laws and acting accordingly. Otherwise, he/she will be held responsible in the Hereafter and may be punished for violating them.

Based on the above law, it is obligatory upon every duty-bound person to be educated in religious knowledge and laws concerning all fields of life. This means that one must try one’s best to deduce all laws from the Book (i.e. Holy Qur’an) and Sunnah (words, deeds, and confirmations of the Holy Prophet and Imams). These laws must be then kept in mind or in a book in order to refer to them whenever necessary and to teach them to others.

This process is known as ijtihad in the terminology of Muslim jurisprudence ( fiqh ). Since this time-consuming process is conditional upon many special qualifications and is extremely exhausting, it is not practically attainable except by a few. One unable to go this route must follow a religious authority. This means that one must refer to a well-qualified religious jurist ( mujtahid ) who has gone the mentioned way and become an expert in deducing religious laws from their sources.

Thus, a duty-bound person has the option to either become a religious jurist or follow a religious jurist, which are two independent ways of attaining the laws of religion. It is up to him/her to choose between the two options. It is said that if a duty-bound person is not a religious jurist and does not want to follow one, it is her/his obligation to choose a third way for attaining the religious laws, which is to observe precaution ( ihtiyat ) in action.