Jurisprudence Studies in the Social Security: Necessities

Social Security is one of the most extensive systems that are designed to meet people’s basic needs so that it now has about one -third of GDP in many countries and covers the entire process of people’s lives from cradle to grave. Social Security is not found in the Islamic teachings under such a title but it is seen under titles such as supporting the poor, lost, orphaned and gharimin and maintained through strategies such as zakat, khums, fay’ and anfal, charities, and endowments. In the last century a new pattern of social security emerged in the context of the intellectual and cultural foundations and Western industrialized growth which gradually stationed in Muslim countries. Since the new model was different from that of Islam, particularly in the insurance strategy, it was to provide Islamic world with an updated theory in this area. However, regardless of the few thinkers like Shahid Sadr, who fundamentally explained the Islamic approach to this phenomenon, Muslim scholars, especially scholars of jurisprudence, have not considered it in proportion to its importance and status. This paper follows the assumption that the existing legal literature especially in Imami jurisprudence is faced with a kind of reductionism regarding the importance of this issue due to lack of proper understanding of the nature of the new social security and considering social insurance the same as commercial insurance. The author of the present paper tries to explain the nature of new social security and its disadvantages and clarify the disparities between social insurance and commercial insurance. Restating the important issues and legal challenges of social security, he elucidates the need for fiqh to enter seriously into this realm and find solutions for them.