Then we could reply that the cases of dispute and...

Then we could reply that the cases of dispute and disagreements were not among the rarest things; rather, the disagreements might arise concerning most of Muslims’ everyday affairs. However, these disagreements and disputes could not be neglected. In one of its surahs the Holy Quran[^3] has explained how ablution must be performed. What's more, Muslims used to see how the Prophet did his ablution everyday.

However, after the Prophet’s death, the Quran was published in many far away lands which resulted in different interpretations of the verses by various scholars. Verses related to jurisprudential issues were also discussed. Consequently, there were complete disagreements on the verse which dealt with the performance of ablution – this disagreement exists today: the Shiites and Sunnites perform it quite differently.

If there had existed among Muslims an innocent and infallible Islamic leader, who knew the Islamic principles well, such a dispute, which later divided the Muslims into two fractions, would have never arisen and Islamic unity would have been secured. Disagreements over the interpretation of the Quran One of the Islamic penal laws is the cutting of the thief's hand under special conditions which are stipulated in jurisprudential books.

Until a few years ago, when Islam was in its glory days and the Islamic governments adopted their penal systems based on the Quran and the western penal systems had not found their way into the Islamic countries, the only punishment for a thief was the cutting of his hand. But this case too, unfortunately is one over which Islamic scholars do not completely agree, even after fourteen centuries of Islam.

At the time of Mo’tasim Abbasi, when Islam was two centuries old, the Islamic scholars disagreed on the interpretation of the verse which dealt with the cutting of a thief's hand, for it was unclear which part of the hand should be cut. The Caliph then had to resort to Imam Jawad (as). He said a thief's four fingers should be cut.