Course Overview
Course Subject: New Contracts (al-ʿUqūd al-Mustaḥditha)
Instructor: Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Shahīdī
Day and Time: Wednesdays, 9-10 a.m.
Location: Basement of Ayatollah Tabrīzī School, Qom, Iran
Instructor’s Official Website: www.shahidipoor.ir
Course in Social Media: www.eitaa.com/salat_shahidi
About the Course
Traditionally, jurisprudential issues are divided into two categories: acts of worship and transactions, and the same division is also seen in advanced courses of jurisprudence. The first category deals with acts of worship such as prayer, fasting, khums, zakāt, ḥajj, and jihād, one of their conditions being the intention of getting closer to God (al-taqarrub). The second category is related to commercial transactions between people, which are mainly related to everyday worldly issues and the intention of closeness to God is not a condition. Based on this, usually in the books of jurists, the first part deals with the rulings related to acts of worship and the second part deals with the rulings related to transactions. Accordingly, they have also studied these topics in their advanced courses in jurisprudence.
Due to the fact that transactions are always being updated and especially in recent decades, new contracts are always emerging, one of the new titles in books of jurisprudence and advanced courses on jurisprudence is “new contracts” (al-ʿuqūd al-mustaḥditha). New transactions are among the achievements of economic knowledge in the field of economic methods and software, which has a wide scope in the micro and macro economy among nations and governments. Therefore, knowing and applying them in personal and governmental economy and international business relations is one of the clear necessities in today’s life. According to the Shiite view of jurisprudence and the principles of jurisprudence, jurists have always been able to examine all emerging issues, including new contracts, based on jurisprudential sources, and extract relevant jurisprudential rulings from the sources.
Among the new issues in transactions that are very common and practical in our time and have been examined by Shiite jurists at the same time, mention can be made of the following: insurance (such as life insurance, vehicle insurance, home insurance and health insurance), goodwill, Islamic banking, stock exchange, issues related to cheque and promissory notes and remittances, pension rights, and lottery tickets.
This course of Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Shahīdī in 2023 is specifically about goodwill, known in Persian as sarquflī. It is important to mention that what is explained in the books of contemporary jurists about sarquflī is based on the way it is implemented in Iran, which can have important differences, both in essence and in details, with goodwill as practiced in other countries. In the discussions related to sarquflī, the following topics are usually discussed: the definition and nature of sarquflī, its background in jurisprudence, its legitimacy or illegitimacy, the conditions of its legitimacy, and the conditions attached to the sarquflī contract.
About the Instructor
Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Shahīdī is a contemporary well-known Shiʿa scholar of jurisprudence and principles of jurisprudence. Among his teachers, one may refer to Ayatollah Tabrīzī, Ayatollah Shubayrī Zanjānī, and Ayatollah Sīstānī. He is also a member of the jurisprudential questions answering board in Ayatollah Sīstānī’s office. He started teaching advanced courses of jurisprudence and principles of jurisprudence from 2006. Among his advanced courses on jurisprudence are purity, prayer, fasting, khums, trading, ḥajj, Islamic banking and new contracts, and among his advanced courses on the principles of jurisprudence are his discussions on wordings (alfāẓ), practical principles (al-uṣūl al-ʿamaliyya), and ijtihād and taqlīd.
Publications by the Instructor
- Kitāb al-Ijtihād wa al-Taqlīd.
- Kitāb al-Ṣalāh, 3 vols.
- Mabāḥith al-Ḥajj wa al-ʿUmra, 4 vols.
- Kitāb al-Muḥarramāt.
- Mabāḥith al-Alfāẓ, 4 vols.
- Mabāḥith al-Ḥujaj, 7 vols.
- Kitāb al-Taʿāruḍ.
