if enough people carry it out others will be released from responsibility...

if enough people carry it out others will be released from responsibility, but if everyone refrains from carrying it out they will all be liable) upon an intellectually inclined, financially able group from each region to join academies of religious studies in order to study and become learned in the fundamental and subordinate laws of religion, in order to fulfill their own religious duty, educate others, and guide and warn the people.

It is collectively obligatory upon people to establish religious assemblies and seminaries by appointing a group to perform this mission and to attain the following three goals: a. The first goal is to lead the ignorant people to decency; i.e. religion, its fundamental and secondary principles, virtues, sciences, and learning, which are means of spiritual perfection and motives of material welfare. b. The second goal is to enjoin to the right and invite people to perform righteous deeds. c.

The third goal is to discourage from wrong and keep them from indecent actions. This is a collective obligation addressed to all Muslims or all duty-bound persons. By a group, we mean those who work in religious centers and other fields of knowledge. It is in fact collectively obligatory upon an assembly of Muslims to choose some persons to study in seminaries and provide for their expenses from their own property.

However, since every community naturally needs an authoritative leader, this leader will be automatically responsible for choosing such persons, at least because the leader has the right to allocate public property to various uses. To guide ignorant individuals to the right is mandatory in the sense that it is obligatory to direct people towards the truth and teach them the religious laws—be they principles of belief, action, or introductions to these principles—to the extent possible.

The fulfillment of this obligation is the most important reason for establishing seminaries (i.e. hawzah ). It is obligatory to examine the validity of any news reported by a corrupt person, be it information about a religious law, such as recounting a command, a saying of an infallible, a ruling from a religious jurist, or information about other issues, such as relating a dead person’s will.

This obligation is conditional upon investigation and certainty; otherwise, the news cannot be considered substantial evidence or proof. Just as learning religious rulings is an obligation, so is it obligatory to learn the details of these rulings.