Conclusions
As the above showed, al-Shirazi’s approach to normativity is mainly informed by deontological considerations, which are based on his understanding of the relationship between God and humans - a relationship that mirrors that of master to slave.
Humans’ state of servitude requires to evaluate all of their actions in relation to the Master’s wishes, which are - given God’s utter transcendence - only decipherable through His speech. Where al-Dabbusi saw God’s wise design in all of the created world, al-Shirazi restricts human knowledge of the divine to the Qur’an and the words and deeds of the Prophet. Al-Shirazi approaches the Law from the perspective of how the servants experience Revelation. Whatever God commands or prohibits His slaves, they are obliged to follow - not because of any prospects of reward but to avoid punishment. Reward can only be expected, though not for certain, for supererogatory acts, which makes the category of recommended acts (mandub) an exception to his overwhelmingly deontological perspective. The omnipotence of the Master also implies that ethical norms of good and bad are irrelevant in assessing acts - hence, al-Shirazi’s lack of interest in them. For the servant, it does not matter whether an act is good or bad; it only matters to be obedient. For Ashtaris, as Frank puts it, “obedience (at-tarah) [sic] consists, by definition, in the servant’s conforming his action not to the will of his Lord but to His command.”[682] The reason for why one should or should not perform a particular act is at the discretion of the Master. Although al-Shirazi clearly presumes a wise Master, this dimension is not further explored in his legal thought. The revealed commands and prohibitions are the only way for humans to know how to reach salvation - here understood negatively as avoiding punishment. Outside of God’s explicit command and prohibition, the servants are free to act in a manner they deem pleasing to Him. This allows wide scope for human autonomy in acting, though always with God in mind. Yet, it also leaves believers somewhat in a state of insecurity about their conduct in this grey area. While they may be confident of how to avoid punishment by following God’s explicit linguistic form of imperative and negative imperative, their path to reward is less clearly delineated.The linguistic approach to the Law also informs al-Shirazi’s discussion of analogy and rilla. While he clearly understands rilla is as a meaning-giving element for the ruling and as something that provides a rationale or explanation for why an act receives its particular legal status, this meaning is derived primarily on the basis of the semantic and conceptual fields of the wording of the Law. One may even speculate whether al-Shirazi’s preference for using the term ma’na over ’illa is due to its association with a language-based approach, avoiding a term that has connotations of causality in theology and philosophy; though already al-Shafiti employs ma’na for what later jurists call ’illa in the procedure of analogy. As seen above in the section on legal values, he clearly sets himself apart from what he calls the Ashtari approach to the language of the Law.[683]
The emphasis on a language-based analysis of the ’illa also matches al-Shirazi’s understanding of the God-human relationship. The intention(s) of the Master for His servants is sought in His speech. When God, the Master, tells His servants to do or not do something, they have to apply it to all possible circumstances He could intend - or else, they would fail in their obedience and incur punishment. Thus, they look for clues in His speech for what they ought to do. The servants’ responsibilities are most explicit and perspicuous when the Master uses words signifying reason (alfdz al-ta’lil), yet are also found implicitly in the semantic as well as conceptual meaning of His commands and prohibitions.
Nevertheless, the Lord’s directives for His servants, and His intention (qasd sahib al-share),m5 are only found and embedded in His authoritative speech. Going beyond the meaning of the speech would be going astray. The rationale (’illa) of divine rulings cannot be attributed to a meaning God did not express (either literally or conceptually) because meaning, as al-Shirazi says, is the result of utterances (al-ma’nd natijat al-lafz).w' Holding God inscrutable beyond His speech prevents al-Shirazi from formulating a meta-theory of the purpose of the Law that can be utilized to establish the correctness of the ’illa or that can be employed as ratio legis upon silence of the sources. Although the Master’s commands and prohibitions may serve material benefits, they are primarily to be obeyed. The servants are guided by the Master’s speech as understood based on the linguistic conventions of Arabic. God’s inscrutability and omnipotence prevents from speculation about the deeper meaning of His legislative intent or from applying it outside of the semantic-conceptual field of His speech, though al-Shirazi clearly expands the field in which jurists can locate the ratio legis.
More on the topic Conclusions:
- Conclusion
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