Summary of the Book of Thinking - Episode Seven
As for the legal texts, understanding them requires knowing the meaning of words and structures, then the meanings of words and structures, then using specific information to identify the thought. Therefore, it is necessary to know the language in terms of words and structures, to know specific terminologies, and then to identify the rulings. Other texts can be read, but legislative texts cannot be read without Islam; this is because reading is for the sake of taking, and it is not permissible to take from other than Islam. If the ideas are based on doctrine, that is a measure of their validity. Legal rulings emanate from doctrine. When God Almighty said "Read," He permitted reading, but when He restricted the taking of legal rulings, He made the permission specific to matters not related to Islamic legislation. Thinking about legislation, while requiring knowledge of the Arabic language and legal rulings, requires prior knowledge of the reality and the legal ruling, and then applying the legal ruling to the reality. If it applies to it, then that is its ruling, otherwise, another ruling is sought. Legislative thinking requires attention to words like literary texts, meanings and ideas like intellectual texts, and events and occurrences like political texts. It requires attention to everything that other texts need.
Thinking about legal texts differs according to the purpose. Thinking can be for taking or deriving a legal ruling. Taking a legal ruling only requires knowing the words and structures, and although it requires prior knowledge of the Sharia, it only requires mere initial knowledge, not requiring rhetoric, jurisprudence, or other sciences. For example, if a person wants to know the ruling on a type of canned meat, it is enough to know that carrion meat is forbidden and that this type of canned meat is carrion meat. As for thinking to derive a legal ruling, it requires knowledge of words, structures, legal ideas, and the reality of thought, i.e., the ruling. The deducer must be knowledgeable in interpretation, hadiths, and language. Being knowledgeable does not mean being a scholar in these matters, but rather that he can refer to a book of language to know the inflection of a word, and he can ask a person knowledgeable in hadiths. It is sufficient for him to have sufficient knowledge for deduction to be considered a scholar. Therefore, ijtihad (independent reasoning) is especially easy and available to all people these days, and although it is a collective obligation, the renewal of events and the prohibition of Islam from taking from others makes this collective obligation no less binding than an individual obligation. However, the legal ruling should not be taken lightly and without deliberation, but the mujtahid (one who performs ijtihad) must constantly observe what the texts need in terms of knowledge of the language, legal rulings, and the application of the legal ruling to reality, even if the latter is not one of the sciences necessary for deduction, but rather a result of the correct knowledge of the previous three matters.
Legal thinking is for addressing people's problems, political thinking is for taking care of their affairs, and political thinking contradicts literary thinking, which is concerned with the pleasure of words and structures. As for intellectual thinking, it needs to be detailed. If it is thinking about the texts of political science, then political and intellectual thinking are almost the same type, except that intellectual thinking requires that the prior information be at the level of the thought, even if it is not of the same type, it is sufficient for it to be related to it. However, political thinking requires prior information at the level of the thought and of the same type.
Political thinking, like thinking about news and events, is the most difficult type of thinking because there is no basis for it to follow. Therefore, it confuses the researcher and makes him prone to error and illusions if he has not had political experience, followed daily events, and is always vigilant. It is the highest type of thinking, and not thinking about the intellectual base - even though all treatments stem from it - because the intellectual base itself is political thought, otherwise, it is not a correct base.
True political thinking is thinking about the news, even if it includes thinking about political research and political science. These two make a person knowledgeable about politics, but what makes a person political is thinking about the news, provided that familiarity with political science is not a condition for political thinking, it only helps in bringing the type of information when linking. However, when the idea of separating religion from life and the middle ground arose in the West, political research was based on this. When socialism appeared, its proponents remained attached to the West. Therefore, caution must be exercised when reading these researches, because they are based on the middle ground.
Political sciences, like psychology, are based on intuition. Although we do not prefer reading these researches because they are of legislation (because they carry ideas of ruling), since they are a type of intellectual research that includes political research, there is nothing wrong with reading them from this aspect.
One of the political ideas that is based on the middle ground among the West is the idea of collective leadership. Leadership in the West was individual, so people revolted and said that the people should rule, so they put a middle solution, which is that the Council of Ministers should lead, it is not the people (but the people choose the ruler), and it is not an individual, so it is based on the middle ground. Practical reality shows that there is no collective leadership, but the one who assumes leadership is the president or the prime minister. They also said that sovereignty is for the people; because they were annoyed that sovereignty was for a ruler who decides and possesses the will, so they established a council of representatives elected by the people to legislate, and this is a middle solution; because the one who legislates is the ruler and not this council. Above this, the reality of the ruling is that the people choose the ruler and sovereignty is for the law, so there is no sovereignty for the people and no rule for the people. Likewise, emotional matters are one thing, religious matters are one thing, and ruling is one thing. When they revolted against the tyranny of the rulers and their control of the church, they separated charitable and religious matters from the ruling, even though these matters are from taking care of affairs, and the state is the one who supervises them, but in hidden and non-apparent ways. This is with regard to political research with regard to ideas, so how is it with events and occurrences? Which, although it contains some truths, is full of fallacies, so caution must be exercised.
