The Prophet's (S.A.W.) Actual (Fi lī) Tradition and its Status in Inference of Rulings from the Viewpoint of the Two Major Sects (Farīqayn)

The Prophetic action and behavior as a part of tradition is regarded as a kind of evidence and legal plea. Explanation of the concept and nature of the Prophet’s (S. A. W.) action and the two sects’ analysis of this rational reasoning in the process of inference of legal ruling has an important status in Islamic jurisprudence. Given the existing views، there are two general approaches to the Prophet’s (S. A. W.) actions; the first approach that all his holiness’ actions except special actions were legislative، according to which all actions verify as legal rulings; and the second approach، which، in respect to the existence of two legislative and non-legislative ranks for his holiness، in addition to the special actions، his natural and worldly actions، which are among the non-legislative actions، cannot be used as a basis for inference and extraction of legal rulings. The main disagreement among those maintaining the above approaches results from the difference in dividing the Prophetic actions and the genuineness of this division. The expressive actions، however، are the most important actions carried out by the Prophet (S. A. W.)، from which rulings are explicitly extractable، as they have been highly utilized in Islamic jurisprudence، particularly، in “acts of devotion” section. Primary actions are also among the latter part of the Prophet’s (S. A. W.) acts، which are divided into two groups of clear attributes and ambiguous attributes. All the scholars of the two sects in the first group believe in the equality of the umma and the Prophet (S. A. W.) in rulings; but there are many differences of opinion in the second group.