doctrine as a source of law

Abstract Research on value of doctrine in law stems from a question about the sources of the positive law. The fundamental question is Do the rules made by legal scholars have such a status that they are directly a source of law without being included in the law? Doctrine has always played an important role in deepening our understanding of concepts, organizations, and legal rules. Basically, a source of law is an authority that can set general, universal and binding rules on behalf of the general public, and the product of its work must be binding on all. The doctrine hardly fits into this definition. Today the doctrine is not a direct source of law and the courts cannot put the opinion of legal scholars under the same title. However, in the present era, in Iran, the views of legal scholars have been accepted to a limited extent under the heading of "valid fatwas" as a source of law. In this article, while examining the conceptual realm of doctrine, its position as a source of law has been criticized.