The second, and perhaps the most pivotal, epistemological underpinning modern Usulrs uphold is that of the authoritativeness of certainty Hujjiyyat al-qatj.

As alluded in the previous chapter, Usulrs normally assert that cer­tainty is authoritative by its very essence, and thus expound that a jurist must follow and act in accordance with its indication in the process of deducing Sharia knowledge (or Ijtihad).

As shown in chapter 1, during the formative development of Shi'ite legal the­ory, the main polemic upheld against mainstream Sunni scholarship was epis­temological in nature. Buyid scholars, Shaykh al-Mufrd and Sharrf al-Murtada, compellingly advocated that Shi'ite rationalist Usulrs had access to true knowl­edge of Sharia, as they, unlike Sunnis or Akhbaris, only took recourse to evi­dence that generated knowledge (^cilm) and refrained from deducing Sharia knowledge from evidence that generated conjecture. The formative simplistic distinction between knowledge and conjecture seems to be first modified dur­ing the medieval period by the illustrious 'Allama al-Hilli. Hilli, who studied theology, logic, and philosophy under the auspices of Khawaja Nasrr al-Drn al-Tusi and was reportedly immensely impressed with Sunni scholars in their attempt to amalgamate legal theory with peripatetic logic, was perhaps the first rationalist Usuli to make a distinction between knowledge (^cilm) and cer­tainty (qaf'). This distinction effectively led him to advocate that a jurist can deduce Sharia knowledge in an immediate manner through evidence that gen­erated certainty; or in an acquired manner through evidence that generated conjecture.] Although the acceptance of conjecture by Hilli and his succes­sors inevitably attracted Akhbari criticism, we find that the medieval distinc­tion between definitive (qat^cl) and conjectural (zannl) Sharia knowledge is nevertheless located within the modern Usuli discourse. In Faraid al-usul, Ansari commences his thesis on legal theory with a chapter entitled, al-Qat^r, wherein he, perhaps in response to the Akhbari accusations levelled against Usulis, immediately reinforces the centrality of certainty in the Usuli process of ijtihad.

1 See Hilli, Foundations OfJurisprudence, 35, 89.

There is no problem with regards to the obligatory nature ('wujub) of fol­lowing certainty and acting upon it if it is existent; for indeed it by itself is a path (tarlq) towards objective reality (al-waqi^f), and its path cannot be affirmed or negated by the Divine Lawgiver.2

Modern Usulrs have taken the onus upon themselves to further elaborate and justify what Ansari means in the abovementioned passage. They expound much effort in their works of legal theory in trying to define certainty and its relation to knowledge, and through this they attempt to explain its essential authoritativeness in disclosing objective reality and the obligation of its juris­tic utility in ijtihad.

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