However...

However, this obligation is of the category which is known as wajib kifa’i, meaning “an obligation which is on every member of the community as long as it is unfulfilled; but as soon as some person or persons has fulfilled it, it is no longer an obligation on those who have not fulfilled it.” In the present instance, for example, Islamic society needs experts in the medical sciences, in physics and chemistry, in engineering, edu­cation; and as long as there is a lack of expertise in these areas, it is an obligation on the community as a whole to acquire it.

This means that a group of Muslims must devote themselves to research so as to benefit the Islamic people. Similarly, an Islamic society without experts in the shari'ah cannot properly consider itself Islamic, and so it is an obligation for a group of persons from this society to devote themselves to the study of the religious sciences to provide proper guidance to all Muslims.

This is such an important obligation that Allah (SWT) has exempted those who go to seek religious knowledge from the duty of jihad. He says: "It is not (right) for the believers to go forth all together (for jihad).

So why should not a party from every section of them (the believers) go forth to become learned in the religion, and to warn their people when they return to them-so that haply they may beware?" (Surah at-Tawba, 9:124) It is clear from many narrations that the Imams of Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) used to be pleased whenever any of their companions taught religion or gave legal rulings (fatwa) to others.

There are several documented cases of Shi'ahs who lived far from Medina asking the Imam of their time to appoint someone in their area to adjudicate between them in religious problems: Zakariyyah ibn Adam al-Qummi and Yunus ibn' Abdu 'r-Rahman, for example, were named by Imam 'Ali ar-Riza (a.s.), to solve disputes in their own districts.

[^1] In a famous hadith, 'Umar ibn Hanzalah asked Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (a.s.) about the legality of two Shi'ahs seeking a verdict from an illegitimate ruler in a dispute over a debt or a legacy. The Imam's answer was that it was absolutely forbidden to do so.