The Role of Tanqih al-Manat and Similar Expressions in Deriving Laws

Tanqih al-manat (scrutinizing of the intent) denotes those activities aiming at examining the properties and, in general, the nature of the object addressed by the command. It is one of the important rules in Ilm al-Usul that need to be discussed independently and which is highly significant in terms of deducing and extracting Islamic laws.
The writer is of the view that the reason why little attention is paid to this widely used rule is its likeness to analogy (qiyas) because analogy is despised in the school of Ahlul-bayt (AS) and it is viewed as a cause of the destruction of the religion. Perhaps, another reason is that the jurists using this rule cannot determine the cause with certainty. In this study, the writer seeks to examine and explain tanqih al-manat, annulment of properties and similar expressions that are associated with them. The research features the differences and similarities of tanqih al-manat with other rules and expressions such as annulment of properties, verification of the intent, extraction of the intent, analogy of preference, and analogy whose cause has been explicated. Another privilege of this research is the study of the validity and authoritativeness of tanqih al-manat and finally the application of this rule in jurisprudential texts.