Shaykh Haidar Hobbollah - an introduction to his way of thinking (2/4)

In the last post, we covered Shaykh Hobbollah's view on the scope of Shari'a. This has major ramifications, when considered alongside some of his other views. 

In this post, we are going to start to cover the main differences between Shaykh Hobbollah’s approach to fiqh, and the majority of (Shi’a) scholars?

Whilst there are many differences, the three he highlighted as the most important in his lecture at Mahfil Ali (which he asked not to be recorded) were the below [in my view, the most impactful is the second one]:

1. He does not believe there is a requirement to adhere to any form of consensus (ijma’) or the majority opinion of the scholars (shuhra), because neither of these lead to certainty and therefore do not have authority. Whilst in most contemporary usul al-fiqh works, consensus or majority opinion of scholars does not have any authority (hujjiyya) unless it uncovers an Islamic rule (kashifiyya) [noting this is also dhanni], in reality, the final ruling in the fiqh works (risala ‘amaliyya) of most contemporary scholars often does adhere to the views of the majority, by use of obligatory precaution (ahwat wujubi). This is not the position he takes.
   
   
2. He does not believe that you can rely upon narrations by themselves, unless there are enough of them to give you certainty (or unless there are sufficient other contextual indicators [qara`in] that together will help reach certainty).
   
   Another way of putting this, is that he adheres to the position that khabar al-wahid al-dhanni does not have authority. This viewpoint had been held by major scholars of the past, but is not held by any (?) other senior contemporary scholar. The traditional scholarship considers that Allah has certainly given us permission to use khabar al-wahid despite it being a probable source of law. Shaykh Hobbollah disagrees with this conclusion.
   
   
3. He does not believe in the principle of tasamuh fi adillat al-sunan which some scholars use. This is a principle which allows the use of weak sources of evidence to derive a law (what I call the “why not, as there’s no harm” principle). This is often used by some scholars to justify rulings when there are only a small number of weak narrations. It is worth noting that this is not a position held by all scholars and many contemporary scholars do not use this principle.

The conclusion from these methodological differences – which in and of themselves in practice have precedent amongst the major scholars of our current time and/or of the past (including point 2) – is that the threshold required to reach an Islamic law is significantly higher than for most scholars.

This means that there are far fewer Islamic rules that can be derived compared to the majority.

This may be problematic if you had a view that the Shari’a has to be comprehensive [although you could say that the gap could be filled by principles such as bara’a, or you could use the argument of insidadis, who say that you can derive rulings without certainty (authority of Mutlaq al-dhann)]. However, given Shaykh Hobbollah does not have this view, it is not problematic.

In the next post, we will look at some of the other important ways his approach to fiqh differ from the majority.

Useful sources:

His short analysis on the authority of ijma’ and shuhra:  https://hobbollah.com/araa/%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%88%d9%82%d9%81-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%ad%d8%ac%d9%8a%d9%91%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%ac%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%b9-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d9%87%d8%b1%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%81%d8%aa%d9%88/

His 779-page book on hadith, Hujjiyat al-Hadith (2016/2017): https://hobbollah.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HojietAlhadith.pdf

His essay on the topic of Tasamuh (November 2021): https://hobbollah.com/araa/%d8%b9%d8%af%d9%85-%d8%ab%d8%a8%d9%88%d8%aa-%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%b9%d8%af%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%85%d8%ad-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a3%d8%af%d9%84%d9%91%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%86%d9%86/  

 

Shaykh Haidar Hobbollah - an introduction to his way of thinking (1/4)

It has been 7 years since my last post, and apologies for this! Perhaps I may start more regularly again. 

However, rarely have I been so impressed by a scholar, as I was when I met with Shaykh Haidar Hobbollah. On the one hand, he has decades of experience teaching at the highest levels (bahth kharij) in Qum complemented by a plethora of books and essays on complex topics, with innovative ideas. Yet on the other hand, he has also retained the respect of traditional scholarship despite having significantly different views.

This series of short posts aims to bring to light how he approaches Fiqh, why it is important, and what the consequences are. I have framed it as a question-and-answer dialogue, even though it is my interpretation of his perspectives, because I believe it will be easier to understand his thought process. The sources for this, is a mixture of (A) his own published works; (B) what I have heard directly from him; and (C) what he said at Mahfil Ali on 27 May 2022 (and/or what I understood from my conversations with him). I will put useful sources under each question for the more interested readers (who can understand Arabic legal texts).

[One note: I have used the term “Shaykh” throughout to refer to Shaykh Hobbollah. Some may believe this does not accurately reflect the extremely high stature of Shaykh Hobbollah, and some may prefer to use a term such as Mujtahid or Marja’. However, Shaykh Hobbollah is truly humble and does not prefer these titles, even if they appear to be a fairer reflection of his scholarship and abilities. He also dislikes the term Ayatullah because he believes we should not associate human fallible scholarship with Allah].

All errors in the below are mine, and mine alone.

What is the scope of Shari’a?

Shaykh Hobbollah covers this issue comprehensively in his 820 page book entitled “The comprehensiveness of the Shari’a” (shumul al-shari’a), and in 113 lectures on his website under the title “The comprehensiveness of the Shari’a: the limits and scope of Fiqh”. This topic is pivotal to understanding his approach to deriving Islamic laws.

He recognises that the vast majority of Muslim scholars believe that the Shari’a is comprehensive and that there is no situation without an Islamic rule (i.e. it is obligatory, prohibited, recommended, discouraged or allowed), which can be derived based on the standard sources of evidence or base principles. [I will not cover the nuance here about mintaqat al-firagh, which is the view of scholars like Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr].

In contrast to this vast majority, Shaykh Hobbollah’s conclusion is that the Shari’a is not comprehensive i.e. it does not provide an answer for every question. He does not go so far as to say that the scope of Shari’a is extremely limited or even non-existent, like Soroush, Shabastari, Ali Abd al-Razzaq, Mahdi Bazargan…etc..

Instead, Shaykh Hobbollah’s view is that the Shari’a only covers a specific number of issues, and many of issues that we face, should be resolved not by an Islamic injunction, rather they should be resolved through other mechanisms such as ethics, rationality or values (as long as they do not contravene any established Islamic law). More accurately he believes in the goals of shari’a (maqasid) or what he calls in his book the the rules of the constitution (al-qawaid al-dusturiyya). The difference here, is that the conclusions derived through these other mechanisms are human and fallible, able to be discussed and disagreed with, as they are importantly not part of the Shari’a. They therefore cannot be attributed to the religion or to Allah (swt).

For example, if one were to conclude that the Shari’a does not cover issues such as cloning, then Shaykh Hobbollah’s view is that there is no Islamic ruling on this issue, and that any ruling e.g. by the government or by society, which does not contradict an Islamic ruling or one of the maqasid al-Shari’a (goals of Shari’a), would be appropriate. If a rule was instituted by the government, it would be an Islamic duty to not break the law, but there would be no specifically Islamic rule related to cloning i.e. you could say this rule is not against Islamic law, but you could not say there is an Islamic law on this issue.

There is an important nuance to highlight here. Where there is insufficient evidence to derive an Islamic ruling, traditional scholars would often conclude that the Shari’a states that you are free to act in any way (asalat al-bara`ah). Shaykh Hobbollah would argue that there is no Shari’a ruling instituted by Allah (ja’l) in the first place.

You might think that this means there is no practical difference between these two positions (even if there is a major theoretical difference). In and of itself, this may be true. However, when this position is combined with the other differences of methodology by Shaykh Hobbollah (see below), the practical differences become very apparent.

 

Useful sources:

A short summary of his views on the topic (19 May 2022): http://hobbollah.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/shomoolshariaa.pdf

His written publication on the topic (2018): https://hobbollah.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ShomolAlshariat.pdf

His bahth kharij lectures on the topic (2017-2019): https://hobbollah.com/mohazerat_category/%D8%B4%D9%85%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B9%D8%A9/

Translations of his position can also be seen here:

https://www.iqraonline.net/book-summary-part-1-comprehensiveness-of-the-shariah-discussions-on-extents-of-legal-reference-between-intellect-and-revelation/

https://www.iqraonline.net/book-summary-part-2-comprehensiveness-of-the-shariah/