Michael J. Thompson Stephen Eric Bronner Wadood Hamad - Logos

Abbas Amanat
After the collapse of the Safavid Empire in 1736 and the ensuing political
instability, Usulism reemerged as the predominant legal school in the late
18th and early 19th century. In the early decades of the 19th century the
Usuli jurists made evident gains in socio-economic and educational areas
hence laying the foundation for a clerical establishment that continued with
little interruption up to the present. They monopolized the madrasas’
education and the pulpit of the mosques, controlled charitable endowments
(awqaf), and posed as the only legitimate recipient of religious taxes. They
developed amicable though somewhat distant relations with the early rulers
of the Qajar dynasty (1785-1925), a mutually beneficial relation that brought
about the golden age of Usuli ijtihad. The growth of religious circles first in
Najaf, where Akhbarism was soundly defeated, and later in the Iranian cities
such as Isfahan and Qum was supported with a large student body and with a
closely-nit network of mater-pupil patronage. Impressive number of legal
works were produced both on the specifics of the law (furu’) and on the usul
al-fiqh with implicit emphasis on the role of the mujtahids not only as legal
scholars but judges and social mediators. The growth of congregations in
mosques also strengthened jurists’ ties with social groups in search of legal
support, most noticeably the merchants of the bazaar who backed the
mujtahids and financed their teaching circles in exchange for legal security
and representation.
Yet with all the success in developing a semi-independent legal network and a
solid lay constituency, the jurists of the Qajar period did not seek to
reconstruct the theory of ijtihad and its application to public law. Despite
occasional “turf wars” with the state over privilege and sphere of influence, or
later in defiance of the state’s Westernizing policies, they continued to honor
the dichotomy of the religious law (shar’), as it concerned the jurists, versus
the customary law (’urf), as exercised by the state. Neither side, the jurists or
the state (at least before the rise of the European-inspired reforms) attempted
to define each of these two spheres of shar’ and ’urf or demarcate their
boundaries by means of codification, let alone to breach the informal
boundaries between them. The usul al-fiqh remained essentially concerned
with its arcane debates on the legal method and legal sources. Voluminous
works, commentaries and glosses on commentaries were produced by the
Usuli scholars on intricate details of semantics and epistemology. Yet the
mujtahids simply did not see the need for a centralized corporate identity or
for disturbing the delicate balance with the state upon which they
continuously negotiated their power. The state in turn preferred ambiguity
whereby through consent and coercion it hoped to persuade the jurists to
Logos 2.3 – Summer 2003