Affirmation of the Guardianship of Jurist by Intellectual and Quranic Evidence

The present article reviews the main intellectual proofs which affirm the principle of the guardianship of jurist of Islamic law (Wilayat alfaqih) which means general rule or leadership of soeiety. Among the purely reasonable evidence is: it is our duty to administer justice utterly in all aspects of man's life and no one is able to administer justice unless he or she is well acquainted with it, which follows that a ruler needs, in addition to be just, to be most knowledgeable of justice. This notion is referred to as "just guardianship of jurist". Another purely intellectual proof is: we all admit that justice is obligatory and praiseworthy and that injustice is indecent and religiously unlawful and so it is intellectually impermissible to prefer something undesirable to what is most desirable. Consequently, when there is a just religious jurist it is impermissible to entrust the responsibility of governance to other than a just religious jurist. The holy Quran contains a number of verses which can be referred to for affirming the general political guardianship of jurist of Islamic law.