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Students in need of further financial assistance should contact the education team at education@almahdi.edu to enquire about the possibility of further fee waivers. 

 

This course aims to critically assess the section of al-taʿādul wa-l-tarājīḥ from al-ʿAllāma Muḥammad Riḍā al-Muẓaffar’s Uṣūl al-fiqh. This section focuses on the issues related to the conflict of evidences and conflict of duties. It will define what is meant by conflicts of evidence and duties, and then how to subsequently deal with such hermeneutical and normative problems in accordance with Shīʿī legal theory. This module will also critically evaluate different theories and methods applied by Shīʿī scholars in such hermeneutical incidents and normative dilemmas. Furthermore, it will in briefly discuss the problem of ethical dilemmas in some contemporary ethical theories.

 

Lesson Breakdown

Lesson 1      Equality between two or more conflicting evidences and preponderance/preponderating factors (al-taʿādul wa al-tarājīḥ)

Introduction (tamḥid) dealing with factors which help in dealing with conflicting evidences

Pre-requisite to the topic (al-muqaddima)

The reality of conflicting evidences (ḥaqīqat al-taʿāruḍ)

Conditions of conflict (shurūṭ al-taʿāruḍ)

Difference between conflicting evidences and conflict at the level of implementation (al-farq bayn al-taʿāruḍ wa al-tazāḥum)

Lesson 2      Difference between conflicting evidences and conflict at the level of implementation (al-farq bayn al-taʿāruḍ wa al-tazāḥum) (continued)

Having both conflicting evidences and equal evidences at the level of implementation (taʿādul wa tarājīḥ al-mutazāḥimayn)

Lesson 3      Ḥadīth analysis

Having both conflicting and equal evidences at the level of implementation (taʿādul wa tarājīḥ al-mutazāḥimayn) (continued)

Interpretive/hermeneutical governance and exclusion (al-ḥukūma wa al-wurūd)

                    Explanation of interpretive/hermeneutical governance (al-ḥukūma)

Lesson 4      Explanation of interpretive/hermeneutical governance (al-ḥukūma) (continued)

                    Exclusion (al-wurūd)

Lesson 5      Principles in conflicting evidences – silence or choice (al-qāʿida fī al-mutʿāriḍayn – al-tasāquṭ aw al-takhyyīr)

Reconciliation between conflicting evidences is better than rejecting the evidences (al-jamʿ bayn al- mutʿāriḍayn awlā min al-ṭarḥ)

Lesson 6      Reconciliation between conflicting evidences is better than rejecting the evidences (al-jamʿ bayn al- mutʿāriḍayn awlā min al-ṭarḥ) (continued)

First principle: conventional reconciliation (al-amr al-awwal: al-jamʿ al-ʿurfī)

Lesson 7      First principle: conventional reconciliation (al-amr al-awwal: al-jamʿ al-ʿurfī) (continued)

Second principle for two equal evidences (al-amr al-thānī: al-qāʿida al-thānawiyya li-l-mutʿādilayn)

Lesson 8      Second principle for two equal evidences (al-amr al-thānī: al-qāʿida al-thānawiyya li-l-mutʿādilayn) (continued)

Lesson 9      Second principle for two equal evidences (al-amr al-thānī: al-qāʿida al-thānawiyya li-l-mutʿādilayn) (continued)

Third principle prepondering factors (al-amr al-thālith al-murajjiḥāt)

Five types of prepondering factors (al-maqām al-awwal: al-murajjiḥāt al-khamsa)

Ḥadīth as a preponderating factor (al-tarjīḥ bi-l-ḥadīth)

Lesson 10    Attribution of a narration as a preponderating factor (al-tarjīḥ bi-l-ṣifāt)

                    Ḥadīth and chains of ḥadīth analysis

Lesson 11    Opposing the Sunni Muslims as a preponderating factor (mukhālafat al-ʿāmma)

Preponderating factors between equally weighty/good evidences (al-maqām al-thānī: fī al-mufāḍila bayn al-murajjiḥāt)

Lesson 12    Preponderating factors between equally weighty/good evidences (al-maqām al-thānī: fī al-mufāḍila bayn al-murajjiḥāt) (continued)

Conflict of the preponderating factors in the conflict of narrations (al-maqām al-thālith: fī al-taʿaddī ʿan al-murajjiḥāt al-manṣūṣa)

 

Prerequisites

Please note that level four courses are only available to those who have completed all courses in levels one, two, and three. This is because the topics covered in level four require the historical and conceptual foundations which are built in the previous levels.

 

Hours of Study

32 hours

 

Assessment Method

Written Exam (100%)

 

Course Instructor

Professor Seyed Mohammad Seyed Ghari Fatemi

Professor Seyed Mohammad Seyed Ghari Fatemi spent thirteen years studying in the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of Qom between 1981 and 1994, completing his advanced studies (dars al-khārij) in Arabic literature, legal theory, jurisprudence, philosophy, and Islamic theosophy under prominent scholars such as Ayatollah Ḥusayn ʿAlī Muntaẓarī, Ayatollah Sayyid Muḥammad Rūhānī, and Ayatollah ʿAbd Allāh Javādī Āmulī. Alongside his seminary studies, he also completed an LLB (1984) and LLM (1991) in Public Law at the University of Tehran. He received his PhD from the Faculty of Law at the University of Manchester in 1999.

He has been working with AMI since 1995 and currently lectures on Islamic legal theory. He is a Professor of Comparative Human Rights, Islamic Hermeneutics and Legal theory, and Philosophy in the Faculty of Law at Shahid Beheshti University (Tehran) where he supervises masters and doctoral students researching a range of topics. Seyed Fatemi is also a full member of the Academy of Sciences of Iran and a member of the Department of Biomedical Ethics at the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences. He has previously taught in the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of Qom, at Mofid University (Qom), the University of Birmingham, and was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.

He has numerous publications to his name in Persian and English and has organised and presented at dozens of conferences in the fields of law, Islamic studies, and bioethics. He is the author of Human Rights in the Contemporary World (Ḥuqūq-i bashr dar jahān-i muʿāṣir). The first volume of this work (An Introduction to Theoretical Issues: Concepts, Foundations, Scope and Sources) was first published by the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Shahid Beheshti University and is now in its eighth edition. The second volume (Analytical Essays on Right and Liberties) is in its fifth edition, and a third volume (Islam and Human Rights) is forthcoming.