An Examination into the Reasons for Observance of Islamic Doctrines: Rul-ing, Subject, and Belonging

One of the pillars of knowing the issues of jurisprudential ruling subjects is their agent for identification. It is well known that identification of the issue is not the job of a jurist. While rejecting this general and concise claim, this paper examines and explores the status and responsibilities of the "jurists," the Mokalaf (the one charged with a duty), and the "expert" in the field of identifying the subjects of jurisprudential rulings and divides their labors, and assigns the responsibilities of each of them. Through examining these three statuses of identifying the subjects of jurisprudential rulings, it became clear that the jurisprudents' areas of responsibility in identifying religious subjects include defining religious subjects, identifying the alfaz (principles of Islamic Fiqh) of religious subjects, identifying the jurisprudential position of religious subjects, identifying the concept of religious inventions, and identifying the elements of religious inventions. In addition, the jurist's responsibility in conventional issues are, identifying the type of subjects, identifying the jurisprudential position of subjects, and identifying the title of subjects. The areas of responsibility of the mokalaf are, identifying the subjects of religious inventions, identifying the conventional subjects in the stages of conceptualization, identifying the conceptual criteria and finding their examples in case of their ability. Finally, the areas of responsibility of the expert in identifying subjects consist of identifying the concepts and examples of difficult conventional subjects in hadiths, and identifying the concepts and examples of specialized and novel subjects.