ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A General Look At Rites Worship Is a Permanent Human Need Rites enjoy an important role in Islam. Their injunctions represent an important part of jurisprudence and worshipping conduct which formulates a noticeable phenomenon in the daily life of the religious person.

The system of rites in Islamic jurisprudence represents one of its static facets which cannot be affected by the general trend of life or the circumstances of civil progress in man's life except by a small portion, contrary to other judicial aspects which are flexible and dynamic; the method of their application and utilization is affected by the circumstances pertaining to civil progress in man's life, such as the system of deals and contracts.

For example, in the sphere of worship, the man of the age of electricity and space prays, fasts and performs the pilgrimage just as his ancestor from the age of stone mill used to pray, fast and perform the pilgrimage.

It is true, however, that in the civil aspect of getting prepared for a rite may differ from this and that; for this travels to his pilgrimage in a plane, while that used to travel within a camel caravan; when this covers his body - while praying - with clothes manufactured by the machine, that covers his body with clothes he hand-sewed them. But the general formula of worship, as well as its method and legislation, is the same.

The necessity of its application has never suffered any change, nor has its legislating value been affected or shaken up by the con- tinuous growth of man's control over nature and his means of living.

This means that Islamic shad `ah (Jurispru- dence) has not prescribed prayer, fast, pilgrimage and other Islamic rites temporarily, or as a juridical formula limited to conditions it lived in its early epochs of history; rather, it enjoined these rites on man while he uses the atomic energy to mobilize the engine just as it has enjoined them on man while ploughing his field with a hand plough.

Thus do we derive the conclusion that the system of rites treats a permanent need in the life of man, with whom it is created, remaining the same in his own entity in spite of the continu- ous progress in his life-style. This is so because the application of a fixed prescription requires a fixed need.