Fiqh or Law? From Religious Scholars’ Viewpoints, Which One Should Be

The study attempts to answer this question that what types of correlation and interaction exist between scholars of religion and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and law? This question has always been as a controversial one from Persian Constitutional Revolution when the law in its modern sense entered Iran. A number of fuqaha of the constitutional era, and even many of the fuqaha of Islamic Republic of Iran have opposed law or lawmaking in a society that has the Islamic sharia[1]. Many other fuqaha (Islamic jurisprudents) who have accepted it within the framework of the sharia, do not recognize it as a leading rule having the right to issue the final word, but as a dependent rule whose presence is contingent upon sharia. The researcher believes that the most important challenge for the Islamic Republic of Iran is that instead of "law", "decrees or verdicts and fatwas" are counted as the final word. The only way to get out of this challenge is to recognize the law as the final word in the administration of the society, of course, the law which does not oppose the religious principles of shariah.