The scope of the authority or deputyship of faqih is one of...

The scope of the authority or deputyship of faqih is one of the most essential elements of the Shi'a political doctrine. In what follows I will try to briefly point out the main areas of this authority: Authority in presenting Islamic rulings and issuing fatwa A Faqih is the one who has the authority in presenting Islamic views on practical issues including moral and legal ones e.g. abortion, euthanasia, banking, insurance and marriage.

With respect to the beliefs, everyone is responsible to investigate and inquire about the principles of the faith by himself and cannot rely on anyone. Of course, having proved the truth of the religion for himself, one can refer in details to the experts.

Expertise needed for doctrinal issues include great knowledge of both intellectual and revealed theology and it is obvious that to be able to understand the revealed theology one needs to master the methodology of understanding the Qur'an and the Sunnah which is provided in fiqh and its principles. It has to be noted that a faqih or any other scholar has no authority to legislate or alter the laws.

His role is just to do his best to understand the religious position by scholarly consulting the Scriptures and reason. This type of authority is unanimously accepted. Authority in judging This is also unanimously accepted. Authority in administering hisbah affairs It is unanimously accepted that a Faqih is responsible for administering hisbah affairs i.e.

those things that we know for sure the Legislator is not pleased with them being ignored or unattended, even though they are not as such or primarily obligatory. For example, if there is an orphan who possesses some money but he has no guardian to look after his money to his best interest all Shi'a faqihs say that this is responsibility of the just faqih to undertake such task.

Or if there are properties whose owners are unknown it would be again the responsibility of faqih to protect them from being wasted. Any social affair with whose negligence the Legislator is not pleased, thus, must be undertaken and supervised by the just faqih. Authority in ruling the society As we saw above, there is no doubt among the Shi'a scholars that the faqih has responsibility and authority for getting somehow involved in socio-political spheres.

Islam is to bring happiness by offering a comprehensive plan of life and it is job of the faqih to understand, present and implement this plan.