The Types of Obligation from the Perspective of Imam Khomeini

Imam Khomeini
The Types of Obligation from the Perspective of Imam Khomeini

Dividing the duties into general and individual is one of the jurisprudential innovations in Imam Khomeini’s thought. Imam Khomeini considered the legitimate rhetoric to be of two types; the general, legal, and legislative rhetoric that is declared through law and includes the person who is aware of the decree and the one who is ignorant of, as well as those who can fulfill the obligation and those who cannot... Therefore, the obligation addresses everyone and the individual rhetoric addresses each audience independently. 

 

Based on individual and legal rhetoric in Imam Khomeini’s thought, one can examine the individual and general duties.

The Individual Obligations 

In these obligations, awareness of the obligations and the actual ability to fulfill them are the requirements. Otherwise, one would not be subjected to the obligation. Imam Khomeini believes that accepting the governmental responsibilities in the Islamic Republic for those who can be useful is an obligation. He considers ethics, purity of the soul and knowledge as the conditions for accepting the positions saying that: “All the ruins and destructions which occur in the world are due to lack of science or self-purification or both.” In this type of obligation, the conditions should be met. Accepting responsibility in the Islamic society, if one is useful, is a divine duty.”

The General Obligations 

In Imam Khomeini’s thought, the addressees in the general obligations are all those addressed by the decree and are not limited to a specific time, place, or person. In other words, the general obligations are that the Legislator considers a congregation and imposes an obligation on them. Instead of addressing a specific individual the Legislator would consider and address a community.

In this type of obligation that is a matter of making the law, God or other legislators would not make the laws in a general manner so that the person who is incapable of fulfilling the obligation, due to its incapability, will not be addressed by the law; rather he is also included among those who have been addressed by the law but since he has not been able to meet the obligation he is permitted to not follow the obligation or in other words, he is exempted. Hence, Imam Khomeini states:

“Prophet Muhammad whom you know his history well was appointed as the divine messenger. He planned for thirteen years and engaged in wars for about ten years. Yet, he did not say we have nothing to do with the politics and managed the affairs of the Muslim land without saying that we have nothing to do with these issues…”

On this basis, Imam Khomeini considers all the strata as being charged with the obligation and uses the term obligation twelve times during one of his speeches before a number of foreign officials: “Anyway, there are a lot of obligations to fulfill... The government has a duty; the president has a lot of obligations... The labourers are under the obligation, everyone in this country is under the obligation. The obligation is not for one or two persons. All the people are under the obligation...”

The most important issue in the general obligation is the recognition and acknowledgement of the obligation. Being concerned about all foreign and domestic political centres working against the movements Imam Khomeini states that: “We have acknowledged the religious obligation, the divine decree. This is the rationale of the early days of Islam, that is to say, if we are killed, we will go to Paradise, if we kill, we will go to Paradise, and even if we are being defeated, we will go to the Paradise...”

Imam Khomeini’s attention to the general obligations and their distinction from individual ones are considered to be the innovations in his thoughts; because most of the jurists consider the knowledge, power and other conditions of the obligation without making a distinction between individual and general obligations. Imam Khomeini considered two types of obligations. In the individual obligation, he considers knowledge and power of the obliged as the necessary conditions whereas, in the general obligations, he sees power as the definite condition believing that the obligations would address both the capable and the incapable persons and that the decree is actualized with respect to the one who is capable of fulfilling it as well as the one who is incapable of doing so and the latter one is excused before God. Accordingly, from Imam Khomeini’s perspective, powerlessness is an obstacle and not a condition for the obligation.

In this context, Imam Khomeini states: “Sometimes the obligatory command is about personal matters, such as God’s command to Abraham; and sometimes it deals with general and legal matters.” In the first one, since the purpose of the obligatory command is to motivate the addressee, he/she must meet necessary conditions, such as knowledge, power, etc., otherwise, it is impossible to impose an obligation on him/her. But this is not the case with the legal and general obligatory commands because the ultimate goal is not to get everyone motivated and move toward fulfilling the obligation rather the goal is making the law. It is natural that some people will obey this law and some not. However, such obligatory commands and addresses shall not be null and void.

Imam Khomeini believes that in general obligations man is assigned to fulfill the obligation without considering or worrying about the result whereas in the individual obligations man would act while considering the results. He states in this regard: “We must fulfill our duty. The result, whether is achieved or not, is not up to us, it is up to Him. we should only focus on the preservation of the dignity of knowledge, Islam, and fulfilling the divine duties.”

The Relationship Between Right and Obligation from Imam Khomeinis Political Perspective

In the political thought of Imam Khomeini right and obligation are both on the same side; the individual has the right and the duty. The obligations are being traced back to the rights and they are the ways of reviving and fulfilling rights. In fact, the emphasis of Imam Khomeini on duty does mean disregarding the right, but the scope of the right is so expanding. For example, concerning the philosophy of the revolution, he states: “Today, our country has risen... [and this uprising and revolution is to achieve the rights] is a matter that is reasonable and rational. human beings must pursue it...”

For Imam Khomeini, it is in the shadow of being aware of the rights that obligations would become meaningful, because such knowledge is accompanied by our sense of the authority we feel regarding our affairs and as a result, will find ourselves being under the obligation. In addition, it is through the process of continuous conversion of the right to the obligation that action would become meaningful and the duty stems from the faith that is preceded by knowledge and free will. At this stage, the question is how right is turned into an obligation. In fact, rights are the raw materials of the obligations which are the results of having a sense of perception and free will. When perception and free will are fulfilling the obligation would become meaningful, otherwise, it will not make sense.

Another aspect of the continuous changing of the right into obligation is politics. Imam Khomeini says in this regard: “We say that not only the clergies but also all people should be involved in politics. Politics is not an inheritance that belongs to the state, or the parliament, or certain individuals...”

“Preservation of religion and being religious, preservation of the political system of society and so on are also the duties and obligations; but there being obligations depends on the right of man to enjoy religion and the political system which he has chosen. We have responsibility regarding this revolution...”

The Relationship between the Obligation and the Result from Imam Khomeinis Political Perspective

In order to better understand the relationship between the obligation and the result from Imam Khomeini’s political perspective, we examine his duty-oriented perspective within the two frameworks of the value-oriented action and result-oriented ones.

The Value-Oriented Action

There are numerous individual and social factors involved in explaining the perspective of any thinker about something in which will and free will are essential. For example, one’s personality type, including the heredity and environment, personal interests, worldview, culture, nationality, and many other issues play a role in providing motivation and determining the aims. But in this context, human worldview and attitude are more important, hence the reasons for doing the value-oriented action may be varied.

The actions are value-oriented when the activists do them without considering their foreseeable consequences and based on their commitment to what they consider to be a duty, a religious calling, or an act of piety. In other words, the value-rational action is an action that is based on the commands to which one sees himself obliged to fulfill.

Finally, in examining the motives from this perspective, the worldview and the type of human attitude towards the universe, society and man are the essential criteria and play a decisive role. Imam Khomeini’s emphasis on fulfilling the duty can be well understood through the framework of the value-oriented motivation because in many cases he has emphasized fulfilling the duties and considered it as a fundamental principle.

The Result-Oriented Action 

The result-oriented action looks at the goals, the means and the results. This includes the rational evaluation of the relationship between means and ends, the secondary consequences, and finally the relative importance of the various goals.

Influenced by the Islamic attitude and its transcendent values, Imam Khomeini has delineated the result-oriented action in a different way. He does not think merely of the result, because from his perspective, the result, whether it would be a victory or defeat and being killed, is one of the two best things as stated in the Holy Quran, (Anfal: 55); therefore, facing defeat and being killed is not something which Imam Khomeini would dislike.

Although victory is a good thing yet sometimes it is necessary to be killed in battle and apparently experience defeat, and probably this type of defeat is more important and influential than many apparent victories. In the meantime, victory is considered to be an important goal and a motivation that is conditional on more important values ​​such as paying attention to the school of Islam, popular awareness and so on. In other statements, he explicitly regards obedience to the divine commandments as a great victory, because bearing and fulfilling such responsibility is more important than the apparent victory. In addition, from such a perspective, victory is not achieved by defeating the enemy, because victory is seen as fulfilling a continuous responsibility; therefore, it has no specified realm but the world is seen as a battlefield in which such victory should be achieved. 

This duty-oriented perspective is also evident in the lifestyle of Ali ibn Abi Talib. In a sermon called ash-Shiqshiqiyyah, Imam Ali who accepted caliphate because the people insisted, talks about the philosophy of accepting the position of leadership:Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument… I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders... Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is of no value and is worthless.”

The above statement refers to two basic motives for accepting the government, one of which is the ultimatum because of the presence of devotees and supporters and the other is the divine covenant and its command to the scholars to support the oppressed and fight against the oppressor. It is noteworthy that although rejecting the tyranny is an Independent rational proposition (such as the righteousness of justice and the ugliness of cruelty), in this statement he refers to the divine duty, not the rational duty, of the scholars in this regard. By examining the political perspective of Imam Khomeini through the frameworks of value-oriented action and result-oriented action, one can examine his attention to the result from two aspects: From one aspect it can be said that in Imam Khomeini’s duty-orientalism the result is important and that it is a part of the theory of obligation. This is the first stage which is the fulfillment of the obligation and its three pillars, especially the behavioural component. At the behavioural level, the obliged should do its utmost to achieve a realistic result in politics. From another perspective, one can argue that the result is of no importance in Imam Khomeini’s duty-orientalism. This step is the second stage which is the consequence of fulfilling the obligation, the stage in which voluntary actions have come to an end, and submitting to the Divine Ordaining and paying attention to domestic, regional, and international policy structures. These structures sometimes dictate a fatalist approach to political behaviour that is not the choice of the free will of the individual.

By relying on various statements regarding duty-orientalism, it can be said that firstly, the result is not irrelevant and unimportant, and secondly, his emphasis on the expediency of the survival of the revolution expresses his attention to the result of the action. In addition, Imam Khomeini’s method of managing the country during the war of Iran-Iraq, especially in the management of military strategies and tactics, particularly demonstrates how he takes into consideration the matter of expediency in theory and practice.

One of the major axioms of Imam Khomeini’s political practice, which supports this approach regarding the result, is accepting the Resolution that shows he did not make decisions always regardless of the results, benefits and loss. Although Imam Khomeini had insisted on defending against the Iraqi invasion since the beginning of the war, later on considering the internal and external circumstances he accepted the resolution.

“God knows that if it had not been for the inspiration that all of us and our dignity and prestige should be sacrificed for the sake of Islam and the interest of Muslims, I would never have been satisfied with it.”

In his historic declaration issued on July 20, 1988, Imam Khomeini addressed this verse from the Quran that, “Certainly has God showed to His Messenger the vision in truth. You will surely enter al-Masjid al-Haram, if God wills, in safety...” (Fath: 27) which indicates a good fortune for such decision. This verse was revealed at the time of the Hudaybiyyah peace treaty and brought the glad tidings of victory. While some of the Prophet’s companions opposed this peace treaty and even considered it a humiliation for Muslims, the Prophet endured all pressures for the sake of the expediency of Islam. It can be said that Imam Khomeini, by referring to that verse of the Holy Quran, somehow pointed out the similarity between the two above-mentioned peace treaties in a delicate way.

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