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Islam’s Fixed Principles and Precepts
By: Ayatullah Professor Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi
It is sheer deception and hypocrisy to say that one accepts Islam but believes that there is no specific interpretation of Islam and that all its principles are subject to change and various interpretations. As such, Islam may be interpreted the way Christianity is interpreted and a Muslim cannot be distinguished from a Christian. So, we cannot say so-and-so is a Muslim, or not a Muslim!
Every building is constituted of elements such as foundations, wall and roof, and can be distinguished from a ruined structure. It cannot be claimed that building has no constitutive elements. Neither can it be said that a building will remain a building with or without foundations, wall and roof. It will remain a building whether it is constructed in the ground, air or sea, and it has neither specification nor fixed elements. Similarly, assuming that Islam has no fixed and fundamental principles, we cannot say that a certain set is Islam while another set is not Islam.
Therefore, once a person accepts Islam, he ought to accept an array of specific elements as integral parts of the set. Of course, a set may also have suspicious and contingent parts, or an open-ended one to which parts may be added or subtracted. It is nonsense to say that a set has no specific parts, and yet remains a distinct set.
Friends and foes alike know the fundamental and essential elements of Islam. Apart from tawhid, nabuwwah and ma‘ad, Islam has other fundamental elements which are known to all including those who deny God. For instance, ritual prayer and Hajj are recognized as basic elements of Islam. All people of the world know that during a certain period Muslims perform Hajj pilgrimage. Now, could somebody say that the “Islam” he knows has no Hajj? Everyone knows that there are ritual prayers in Islam.
Now, if someone says that he accepts Islam but, according to his understanding of the religion, ritual prayer is not an essential part of it, has he really understood Islam, or is he a deceiver who falsely introduces himself as a Muslim so as not to be deprived of the benefits of being a Muslim or be isolated from Islamic society? It is clear that Hajj, prayer and fasting are integral parts of this set and the essentials of the religion accepted by all Muslims.
If a person claims to know Islam, can he say that Islam has no penal law to prevent theft while the Qur’an explicitly affirms it in the verse, “As for the thief, man and woman”?[1][88] The same is true in the case of others which are affirmed by explicit texts [nass] of the Qur’an. The essentials of Islam are fixed and there is no more need for us to sit together and prove them one by one. As such, if it is proved that the basis of Islam is the Qur’an, truly revealed by God, we have to accept that whatever the Qur’an states is right and that it encompasses an array of fixed, essential and definite elements.
Of course, some verses may have different interpretations but the mere existence of two different interpretations of a verse does not suggest that no fixed and definite element can be inferred and deduced from the Qur’an, and that anyone can interpret it in whatever way he likes.
Once a person who is acquainted with the Arabic language refers to the Qur’an, he will find therein a series of specific themes which have nothing to do with different human interpretations and are not dependent on presumptions, mindsets and laws that we have learned from science. For example, regarding the verse on prayer or the amputation of the thief’s hand, a person who lived at the time of the Aristotelian “four elements” and Ptolemaic “seven spheres” would have interpreted it just as the one who is living in this age of Einstein’s law of relativity. It cannot be said that since Einstein’s law of relativity is the order of the day, the meaning of the verse has also changed.
There may be a verse whose words are related to certain sciences due to the lexical development and other factors, but there are some subjects that their understanding has no thing to do with different sciences.
Fixed essential laws and decisive concepts of the Qur’an
Both Muslims and non-Muslims know that Islam has a set of fixed essential laws. A set of definite concepts can be deduced from the Qur’an and understood by a person, whether he believes in the Qur’an or not. Understanding those concepts depends on one’s familiarity with the Arabic language and not on his being a Muslim. However, not all subjects of the Qur’an are of this kind. Some Qur’anic verses are such that different meanings can be inferred.
Another salient feature of the Qur’an is that it has many levels of meaning; explicit [zahir], implicit [batin] and esoteric [batin al- batini], but our focus is on the essentials of religion, on elements that never change and in spite of the difference in approach and interpretation, their meanings remain fixed, definite and unchangeable. For example, the passage “And maintain the prayer”[2][89] indicates the performance of prayer as wajib while this passage points to fasting as wajib: “Prescribed for you is fasting.”[3][90]
Regardless of the impending multiplicity of scientific theories and scientific investigations, the import of those verses will never change.
Whenever we talk about the essentials of religion, we regard them fixed, definite and unchangeable because they are among the most fundamental and decisive sources of Islam. That is, we consider the Qur’an and the Sunnah as authoritative with clear evidence. Those who deny the essentials of religion, saying that one cannot have a definite and absolute understanding of Islam are ignorant, erroneous, or egocentric, having no faith in Islam and only duping the Muslims.
Undoubtedly, one of the essentials and fundamental principles in Islamic political theory is that the law should be enacted by God. Those who deny divine law actually deny one of the essentials of religion. Just as the obligatory nature of prayer can be deduced from the Qur’an, the decree on the adulterer and the adulteress can also be discerned.
With the same clarity that the ruling about prayer and fasting can be confirmed in the Qur’an, obedience to the Prophet (s) is also made obligatory, and in the religious law of Islam, the station of the Prophet (s) is recognized as a station that requires absolute obedience [muftarad’ut -ta‘ah]. In this regard, God says:
 íóÇ ÃóíøõåóÇ ÇáøóÐöíäó ÂãóäõæÇ ÃóØöíÚõæÇ Çááøåó æóÃóØöíÚõæÇ ÇáÑøóÓõæáó æóÃõæúáöí ÇáÃóãúÑö ãöäßõãú 
“O you who have faith! Obey Allah and obey the Apostle and those vested with authority among you.”[4][91]
God also says, thus:
æóãóÇ ÂÊóÇßõãõ ÇáÑøóÓõæáõ ÝóÎõÐõæåõ æóãóÇ äóåóÇßõãú Úóäúåõ ÝóÇäÊóåõæÇ...
“Take whatever the Apostle gives you, and relinquish whatever he forbids you...”[5][92]
Islam cannot be accepted without accepting the purport of verses that mention the essential features of Islam, or by acting upon them selectively. Such a superficial acceptance of Islam is the practice of those who are referred to by God in this verse:
æóíóÞõæáõæäó äõÄúãöäõ ÈöÈóÚúÖò æóäóßúÝõÑõ ÈöÈóÚúÖò
“And they say, ‘We believe in some and disbelieve in some’.”[6][93]
Thereafter, regarding such people, God says:
ÃõæúáóÜÆößó åõãõ ÇáúßóÇÝöÑõæäó ÍóÞøðÇ
“It is they who are truly faithless.”[7][94]
Thus, whoever has faith in Islam should accept the entire set of Islamic laws and decrees and believe that the essentials of Islam are independent of scientific developments or new scientific theories. As such, whoever regards the verse related to prayer as true also regards as such the verse related to the ruling on theft. In the Qur’an one can find allegorical and contingent cases as variable parts of Islam as well, but one must believe that the Qur’an and Islam must have fixed and definite parts that make it distinct from other religions.
Removing skepticism on the existence of contradictory interpretations of Islam
In Islam there are thousands of definite decrees about which all the Islamic schools of thought [madhahib] have a consensus of opinion. Many of the differences between the Sunni and the Shi‘ah are related to secondary matters that constitute an insignificant part of Islamic laws. There is no difference between the two schools in most subjects of jurisprudence [fiqh].
Similarly, in the Shi‘ah school of thought the difference among the religious edicts of jurists [fuqaha] on some laws does not mean difference of opinion on all cases. In the same vein, the difference of prescription of two doctors for the treatment of a specific ailment does not imply that there are no fixed and definite elements in the science of medicine.
Therefore, in Islam we have an array of certainties [yaqiniyyat] in which there is neither dispute nor doubt. The existence of difference in some cases should not make us skeptical about the definite principles, and set Islam aside. Regrettably, nowadays, whenever Islam is talked about, the sick-hearted who, in the language of the Qur’an are “those in whose hearts is deviance,”[8][95] say: “Which Islam? Islam of the Shi‘ah or Sunni? Islam of the fuqaha or the university-educated intellectuals?
Notwithstanding the existence of one set of unanimously agreed upon moral precepts, personal decrees and social rules in matters of beliefs and fixed principles and commercial and international laws, why do they focus on the disputable and debatable issues? Whenever it is said that the university must be Islamic, why do these sick-hearted and crooked-minded ask, “Which Islam?”
In reply to them, it is the same Islam which says that God is One; it is the same Islam which enjoins prayer; it is the same Islam which forbids the violation of others’ rights and promotes the implementation of justice. Are these points disputable among Muslims? Implement in the university the same indisputable tenets about which the Sunni and Shi‘ah have consensus of opinion, and you will earn the utmost pleasure of all. It is natural that whenever they do not want to follow the dictates of Islam, they find excuses such as “Who says that the Islam of the fuqaha should be implemented and not the Islam of the intellectuals?”
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