Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Nourmofidi: If Jurisprudence is Not Contemporary, It is Not Jurisprudence

The head of the Contemporary Jurisprudence Research Institute said: “Contemporary jurisprudence is a jurisprudence that utilizes modern sciences and seeks assistance from new methods, rereads old issues, and re-examines problems with a new approach. Fundamentally, contemporaneity is inseparable from jurisprudence, and if jurisprudence is not contemporary, it is not jurisprudence. Of course, reducing jurisprudence merely to newly emergent issues is also problematic.”

According to the Ijtihad Network, Professor Sayyid Mojtaba Nourmofidi, in a meeting of researchers at the Contemporary Jurisprudence Research Institute, examined the conceptual framework of the lexical combination “contemporary jurisprudence.” Emphasizing that the nature of contemporary jurisprudence is an important question both inside and outside the Islamic seminary, he enumerated five fundamental axes for explaining the terminology, contexts, requirements, research scope, and chapters of this discussion.

Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Nourmofidi, emphasizing the necessity of the relationship between contemporary jurisprudence and jurisprudence within its traditional framework, considered the criterion for measuring this commonality to lie in four axes: objectives, foundations, sources, and approaches. He added: “These criteria represent both points of commonality and points of distinction. In terms of general approaches and objectives, they are shared, because absolute jurisprudence shares the same objectives as contemporary jurisprudence, and both seek to deduce or discover the Sharia ruling. Of course, in contemporary jurisprudence, we pursue a specific objective in addition to traditional jurisprudence, which is the development of the process or science of deduction. When we expand the sphere of human individual life to social life, and legal personality emerges, the scope of deduction also expands; therefore, we must extend the scope of deduction into the depths of human life.”

The professor of advanced jurisprudence at the Qom Seminary said regarding the explanation of foundations: “These foundations have commonalities in both the sphere of contemporary jurisprudence and traditional jurisprudence, one aspect of which is in terms of knowledge. Jurisprudence is based on rules, but when it is placed in the contemporary sphere, both sciences and methods expand. Another aspect is in terms of sources; the sources of jurisprudence are the same fourfold sources, and these are preserved in contemporary jurisprudence as well, but an effort is made to correct the imbalance between the evidences, so that, for example, the Qur’an or reason are also placed in their proper balance.”

He emphasized: “This has occurred in certain periods of jurisprudence, and this approach is clearly observable in some of the deductions of the First Martyr (Al-Shahid Al-Awwal) or the author of Jawahir. For example, in the discussion of a woman’s claim for her dowry (mahr), the First Martyr considers the ruling to prioritize the man’s claim as being directed at the customary conditions at the time the narration was issued, when it was customary for the man to pay the entire dowry at the beginning of the marriage.”

Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Nourmofidi added: “Regarding the narrations, one must also see how they should be approached, and discussions such as refining the basis of the ruling (tanqih al-manat), eliminating specificities (ilqa’ al-khususiyyah), the suitability of the ruling and the subject (munasabat al-hukm wa al-mawdu’), priorities, and so on must be explained; because there is a debate as to whether these instances are fundamentally verbal inferences or not. Now, the limits and documentation of these sources must be determined.”

The professor of advanced seminary courses in Qom stated: “The same applies to reason and the narrations themselves. For example, relying on the ‘taste of the Lawgiver’ (mazaq al-shari’) is common. For instance, Muhaqqiq al-Khoei, in the discussion of the evidences for women’s religious authority (marja’iyyah), after rejecting all the proposed evidences, considers the taste of the Lawgiver to be opposed to women’s leadership. Or in the rule of the ‘negation of domination’ (nafy al-sabil), some jurists, after rejecting all the evidences, by relying on the taste of the Lawgiver, say that the taste of the Lawgiver is not satisfied with an unbeliever having a way of domination over a Muslim. And what is interesting here is that their reliance for the taste of the Lawgiver is also on verses and narrations.”

He emphasized: “From this perspective, absolute jurisprudence and contemporary jurisprudence, although aligned in general approaches, have differences in specific approaches.”

The head of the Contemporary Jurisprudence Research Institute continued by addressing the aspect of priority of contemporary jurisprudence over other specialized jurisprudences, adding: “All the terms that address new jurisprudential discussions, such as governmental jurisprudence, social jurisprudence, civilizational jurisprudence, and so on, claim to differ from the traditional approach. However, contemporary jurisprudence is the most comprehensive combination, and encompasses all of them. Contemporary jurisprudence means a jurisprudence that takes help from modern sciences, seeks assistance from new methods, addresses new and emergent issues, rereads old issues, and examines them with a new approach. It is a jurisprudence that must address the issues of the contemporary world; among these issues are the processes of managing society, as well as presenting a system and intellectual framework.”

He noted: “With this approach, it is the most comprehensive lexical combination among the newly emergent jurisprudences. For example, civilizational jurisprudence is a jurisprudence that addresses the processes leading to the production of civilization and focuses on the trend. Or governmental jurisprudence is based on the centrality of the government. Or social jurisprudence addresses the meaninglessness of individual life.”

Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Nourmofidi emphasized: “Contemporary jurisprudence is a jurisprudence that utilizes modern sciences and seeks assistance from new methods, rereads old issues, and re-examines problems with a new approach. With this approach, contemporary jurisprudence observes the issues of the contemporary world and the processes of the new world, and seeks to present a coherent intellectual system on this basis.”

The head of the Contemporary Jurisprudence Research Institute emphasized: “Jurisprudence is for regulating human laws, and fundamentally, contemporaneity is inseparable from jurisprudence, and if jurisprudence is not contemporary, it is not jurisprudence. Contemporary jurisprudence means updated jurisprudence. Of course, reducing jurisprudence merely to newly emergent issues is also problematic.”