Choosing the Most Learned is Impossible

One of the most important topics in the issue of taqlid is the selection of the most learned (a'lam). To understand what is meant by a'lam, let us look at the definition provided by the maraji' themselves:

Taqlid in rulings means acting according to the instructions of a mujtahid. One must imitate a mujtahid who is male, adult, sane, Twelver Shia, legitimate-born, alive, and just. (Also, based on obligatory precaution, one should imitate a mujtahid who is not greedy for this world) and from among other mujtahids, he should be the most learned (a'lam), meaning he is more skilled in understanding God's ruling than all other mujtahids of his time.^[1]

The above definition appears — with slight variations in wording — in the treatises of thirteen named maraji'. "More skilled in understanding God's ruling" is the description that identifies the a'lam. That is, any person who does not wish to become a mujtahid and does not wish to act on precaution must first find a group of mujtahids who understand God's ruling, and in the second step, find the one most skilled among them in this task! For any non-infallible human being, regardless of how knowledgeable he is, both of these tasks are impossible! Because judging many rulings until the Day of Resurrection is not possible, and it is God who will ultimately show which of the disputed positions was correct. Without such an examination, one may say in words "better than the rest," but in practice, one cannot call someone a'lam except through illusion, imagination, assumption, and conjecture.

Even if we assume that we somehow come to know of such a person and go to him, the more his knowledge increases, the more he becomes aware of the unknowns of the world and his own ignorance, and he comes to believe that he is not the most learned. And when such a person cannot give a definitive judgment about himself that he is the most learned of all, a fortiori he cannot judge about others either.

In principle, in no field of science can anyone select the most skilled and the best. Even those who select Nobel Prize winners never claim to have chosen the most skilled in each field — mathematics, literature, physics, etc. — and they themselves are not ordinary people but are expert scientists from around the world. Moreover, most of those fields are empirical, and the results of theories and research can be evaluated in practice. In such circumstances, how can someone who considers himself incapable of understanding the words of God and the Imams (a) make such a great claim as having found the most learned in religion?!

Since the maraji' themselves have been aware that this task is not feasible and would be an enormous claim, they have proposed several alternative methods:

Ways to recognise the most learned (a'lam):
First: that one is certain oneself, such as being among the people of knowledge and being able to recognise the mujtahid and the most learned.
Second: that two just, knowledgeable persons who can recognise the mujtahid and the most learned confirm someone's mujtahid status or being the most learned, provided that two other just, knowledgeable persons do not oppose their statement.
Third: that a number of knowledgeable persons who can recognise the mujtahid and the most learned, and from whose statement one gains confidence, confirm someone's mujtahid status or being the most learned; rather, by any means by which one gains confidence in someone being the most learned, according to the more apparent view, one may rely on it.

They have written that either one must attain knowledge oneself, or act upon the testimony of two or more who can recognise the a'lam. However, it must be said that the individual can only imagine that he has found the a'lam, two just knowledgeable persons, since they are human, can only imagine, and several people likewise. When it is impossible for a human to verify what is stated in the definition of a'lam, it makes no difference whether the witnesses are one, two, or three — they too cannot do it, and the result is the same.

In other words, testimony has meaning only when there is a basis to believe the witness's words. For example, in court, a witness must be able to prove that he was present at the scene when the incident occurred, and it must be established for others that the witness's visual apparatus was functioning adequately. If it is certain for us that the witness was not present at the scene or claims to have seen something that we know exceeds his visual ability, no matter how much he swears — even if there were thousands of such witnesses — we would not gain any confidence, nor even any assumption (since it is established for us that none of them could have witnessed the incident).

Two additional pieces of evidence that the maraji' themselves are fully aware of the impossibility of this task are: first, in the continuation of the above fatwa, they introduce several "ifs" and "buts" and ultimately more or less arrive at sentences like "in case of doubt among several mujtahids and no preference among them, one may imitate any of them" or "one must imitate one of them"^[2]. Second, in recent years, in response to people's needs, the scholars of the seminary have held meetings and consultations and ultimately arrived at a list of, say, seven maraji' who are the most learned, and have publicly introduced them to the people^[3]. This itself shows the immense difficulty of choosing the a'lam, because everyone knows that to help people, if it were possible to announce fewer options, they would have been obliged to limit the list further, but they could not. The question is: if the specialists of the seminary could not reduce the list to six, five, or four people, how can they expect people, without asking for the proofs of their rulings, to reduce this list to two or one person?!

Thus, although the word a'lam is a catchy title that inspires trust in people, in practice it is truly nothing more than the assumption and conjecture of one person or the assumption and conjecture of a group. Such an issue, which is clearly contrary to reason, also causes fear and mockery in people and brings the religion into disrepute. Consider a foreign atheist who, after research and investigation, becomes convinced of the truth of Islam and Shiism, and now, as a new Muslim, he is told: you must determine the best Muslim or the best identifier of Islam for yourself! If, upon hearing this demand or reading the pages on choosing the a'lam in the treatises, he doubts his choice and turns away from religion, he is truly justified and is not to be blamed!

Parent page: Taqlid from the Perspective of Reason

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