The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
[565] The author mentions three sciences, viz.: فان قلام
_fán kalám_, “the science of scholastic theology;” فن اصول
فقہِ _fán ás ul fikah_, “the science of the fundamentals of
religion and law;” and فن فِقہ _fan fikah_, “jurisprudence.”
We have already explained the first (see note 1, p. 327);
the four fundamental articles of the faith have been also
enumerated (see note 1, p. 324); but the _fikah_,
“jurisprudence,” although stated as distinct, in reality
comprehends the two first, and in addition shows only the
practical application of them. Al Ghazali, quoted by Pococke
(pp. 200-201, etc., 1st edit.), after having said that this
world is created for furnishing assistance on the way to
future life, in order that men, with a due check on
cupidity, may take as much of this world as may be
sufficient for a viaticum, and after having declared, that
the jurist is to be the director of the king in the mode of
retaining the people in due order, subjoins: “This science
(the law) belongs to religion, although not by itself, yet
by the intervention of the world. For the world is a field
which is sown for the future, nor is religion put into
practice, if not by the world. But religion and government
are twin-brothers; religion is the foundation, and the king
the guardian; but what wants a foundation, verges to ruin,
and what has no guardian, goes off into nothing, etc., etc.”
The same intimate junction of religion and civil law, which
is acknowledged to prevail in the legislation of the Hindus,
as well as in that of the ancient Hebrews and Persians, has
passed into that of the Muhammedans. Just as the Vedas with
the first, the five books of Moses with the second, the
writings of Zoroaster with the third, so is the Koran with
the fourth, the foundation of their code, and contains what
we may call their whole civil and canonical law. With
respect to the last-mentioned book, as it contains likewise
all the articles of faith, it follows, that a doctor in law
is also a doctor in theology; or a _faki_ is at the same
time a lawyer and a theologian: hence the word _al faqui_ in
the language of the Spaniards, who have preserved to our
days, in their character and manners, not a little of their
former conquerors, the Saracens.
[566] Upon _ghaibet_, “absence, disappearance, concealment”
(see hereafter, p. 383, an explanatory note).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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