ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Authority From a Shiite Perspective Authority and Wilayah There are various types of authority. Teachers have authority over their students. Employers have authority over their employees. Parents have authority over their children. None of these sorts of authority are absolute. Parents do not have authority to abuse their children. Authority is not mere liberty to command. The limits on authority are especially pronounced in Islam.

All authority belongs ultimately to God, and different people exercise specific types of authority according to the responsibilities given to them. One who exercises authority may be required to use personal discretion, but discretion is always to be employed in order to carry out one's duties in the best possible way, and does not imply that one has a free hand to do whatever one wants. If there is any absolute authority, it is the authority of God.

(This sentence questions if there is any absolute authority…. How about: The only absolute authority is the authority of God. )Here, however, there is a difference between Shi'ite and Ash'arite views. Most Sunnite theologians accept an Ash'arite position, according to which all moral obligation derives from divine commands, and that since it does not make sense to speak of God commanding Himself, He is not constrained by any moral obligations.

It would not be wrong for Him to command murder and stealing, but rather, if He commanded them, they would become morally obligatory. Shi'ites, on the other hand, along with the Mu'tazilites, hold that what we know by reason to be wrong, could never be commanded by God. The Ash'arites object that this seems to imply that reason—or the absolute moral values discerned by reason—has an authority above the authority of God. Heaven forbid!

Shi'ites respond that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of authority. God cannot command what is wrong because He is essentially just, not because He is subservient to justice or reason, or because He lacks sufficient power to be unjust. God has absolute authority, not in the sense that He could command what is wrong, but that He does whatever He wills, and He necessarily wills what is just and what is better than justice, e.g., grace, because He is essentially just and merciful.