Verse 36 of Surah al-Isra'
Another important verse against taqlid states:
And pursue not that you have no knowledge of; the hearing, the sight, the heart — all of those shall be questioned. (17:36)
Allamah Tabatabai in his commentary on this verse implicitly confirms that it requires following with knowledge and negates taqlid, but still permits taqlid as following conjecture (zann) based on a scholarly and rational authority. Yet the verse explicitly uses the phrase "laka" (for you): "Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge" — emphasizing that knowledge possessed by others does not remove the responsibility from your ears, eyes, and heart. You must use these faculties and make the knowledge your own. Allamah discusses people's "ability," implicitly using the inability of some as a reason for permitting taqlid. However, the verse explicitly commands those who are responsible (mukallaf) not to follow without knowledge, and that the ear, eye, and heart are responsible for acquiring knowledge. Where they are not able, responsibility is naturally removed, without needing to introduce taqlid as a substitute, for two reasons: first, if needed, God would have mentioned it later in the verse; second, the act of taqlid violates the command of the verse's opening "la taqfu" (pursue not), which is explicit.
Allamah then presents arguments in defense of his interpretation that are logically unsound. He says:
"If acting according to a scholarly authority that makes action obligatory were not following knowledge, the noble verse would be completely incapable of indicating its meaning, because we understand the content of the verse itself through a scholarly proof that is itself no more than conjecture — that is, the verbal apparent meaning, which conveys no more than conjecture. However, we have a definitive proof that following this conjecture is obligatory, and that definitive proof is the rational practice (sirah of the wise) regarding the authority of apparent meanings. Therefore, if following knowledge means only when a person attains knowledge in each matter personally, then our following of the apparent meaning of the verse would not be following knowledge, since we are not certain that the real intent is the same as what appears from it..."
And on the next page:
"Another problem appears in the noble verse: the way to reach the purpose and understand the intent of the verse is its apparent meaning, and the apparent meaning is a conjectural path. So if the verse indicates the prohibition of following non-knowledge, it must certainly indicate the prohibition of acting upon and adopting its own apparent meaning..."
In simple terms, he says: "I do not have knowledge of the real intent of verse 36 of Surah al-Isra'; I only have conjecture. So if I accept the verse, it is because I have accepted conjecture. Therefore, the verse cannot prohibit the acceptance of conjecture because in that case it would be prohibiting itself!"
However, Allamah has confused two different issues. The main issue is: "Is following conjecture permissible?" The secondary issue Allamah raises is: "Is this command actually what God intended, and has God truly said something that I should follow?" Allamah gives a conjectural affirmative answer to the second and then concludes the first is also affirmative. But the usefulness of conjecture does not justify reversing the meaning of the verse! Moreover, conjecture is not even useful for answering this question!
In other words, Allamah's answer to the second issue is: "I have nothing more than conjecture to say that the command 'do not follow' is truly God's intent." Our response to Allamah is: as long as you have conjecture that the verse means something else, examine that other meaning. From whatever point you pass beyond conjecture and attribute this meaning and intent to God, from that moment onward the verse says: do not follow conjecture! When you have accepted the divine authority and correctness of this prohibition, you cannot logically accept a proposition contrary to it; otherwise, you fall into circular reasoning and misguidance.
Interestingly, Allamah himself confirmed on the previous page (p. 126 of his commentary):
"Not following what we have no knowledge of, as well as following knowledge, is in reality a ruling that human nature itself endorses."
When we have the endorsement of human nature, raising the issue of "whether the verse intends this or not" and using it to distort the apparent command and extract a contrary meaning is inappropriate. In other words, the above statement contradicts his claim that "we understand the content of the verse through a scholarly proof that is itself nothing more than conjecture."
If Allamah's reasoning were correct and he were alive and present, saying "to understand my commentary, ask me and do not refer to anyone else," we could use the same argument against himself and say: "We are not sure of your real intent from this statement; to be sure, we will refer to someone else. So in principle, you have permitted referring to others; otherwise, your command would be deficient in indicating what you want to say!"
An analogy can clarify the issue. Suppose a school principal announces during an exam through the loudspeaker: "If you don't know the answer to a question, don't copy from another student." A student in one class then creates a new problem for himself: "Did the principal mean we shouldn't cheat? Did the principal actually say this?" Then he says: "I don't know the definite answer to this new question, but since the top student's answer is positive and I trust him, I accept that the principal meant this. This shows I am allowed to copy answers from the top student. And if this isn't so, how would I even know that I shouldn't copy from others?!" Yet every student knows not to cheat; the principal's statement was merely a reminder. The seemingly clever student, by considering what he understood from the principal's words as merely conjectural and attributing his belief to another student, constructs a justification to cheat in other matters!
Evidence in the Text of the Verse
Besides the logical arguments above, there are several subtleties in the text of the verse that block interpretations contrary to its apparent meaning, preventing anyone from using it to justify taqlid. For instance, someone might say: "I follow knowledge, but I don't possess that knowledge myself — my marja' has it, and I follow his knowledge." Here, the phrase "laka" (for you) subtly shows this justification is incorrect, because God means knowledge that is for you yourself, not for someone else.
Another person might say: "I follow knowledge, and this knowledge is my own — but it's not knowledge of the act; it's knowledge of the marja's expertise. I don't know why a certain act is correct, but I know that so-and-so is an expert. So I imitate him, and this is following knowledge." Allamah takes a similar position. Here, another subtlety of the verse — the word "bihi" (of it) — blocks this path. The verse says: "Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge" — this means knowledge must be of the thing you are doing, not knowledge that someone else has the qualification for being blindly followed.
Furthermore, if the verse addressed the second person plural "lakum" (for you plural) instead of the second person singular "laka" (for you singular), someone could say: "My marja' and I together constitute the addressees of this verse. I don't have knowledge, my marja' does, I imitate him, but as a group, we have followed knowledge, and the knowledge was for ourselves! (We divided the work: knowledge is with the marja', action with me!)" But the verse explicitly addresses each individual: "Do not pursue that of which you (singular) have no knowledge" — not "you (plural)." This point is highlighted by noting that while verses 17:20 to 17:39 generally address the singular "you," the five verses before this all address the plural. From verse 31 onward it says "do not kill" (plural), "do not approach" (plural), "fill the measure" (plural), but when it reaches verse 36, it returns to the singular: "Do not pursue!" (singular). All this evidence shows that no path for permitting taqlid can be found from this verse.
Additionally, the use of the verb "la taqfu" instead of "la tattabi'u" and similar terms is not without wisdom. "Tabi'iyyah" generally conveys following, but "qafw" more specifically means going behind, following in someone's footsteps, which is closer to taqlid. Other Quranic uses of this root include: "And We sent following in their footsteps Jesus son of Mary" (5:46) and "Then We sent following in their footsteps Our messengers" (57:27) — both confirming the meaning of sending behind or after something.
The Overall Content of the Verses
In conclusion, it is noteworthy that verse 36 is mentioned at the end of a set of 24 divine commands and prohibitions. This set begins with:
"Set not up with God another god, or you will sit condemned and forsaken." (17:22)
And ends with:
"That is of the wisdom your Lord has revealed to you; set not up with God another god, or you will be cast into Gehenna, condemned and rejected." (17:39)
These two warnings are themselves against taqlid because, as explained in the section on Verse 64 of Surah Al 'Imran, taqlid is shirk in obedience and worshipping other than God. In other words, this section begins with: do not make anyone a partner with God in obedience without acquiring knowledge of the correctness of his commands; then it gives 20 different recommendations; then it says "do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge" — another explicit negation of taqlid; then it says "do not walk proudly on the earth" — perhaps indicating that when you acquire knowledge, do not become arrogant and always seek to evaluate and improve your knowledge and religion; and finally, it ends with the renewed prohibition of shirk in obedience.
What is even more interesting is that both of these commands are accompanied by a reason. God does not say "do not commit shirk because I, God, tell you so"; rather, He says "do not commit shirk because otherwise you will later reproach yourself." And indeed this is true: whoever does something without knowledge and merely on the authority of others' commands, believing in its correctness and insisting on it — whether the act is correct or not — will eventually condemn himself. If it turns out wrong, he will say: "Oh, would that I had not taken so-and-so as a friend! (25:28) He led me astray from the Remembrance after it had come to me; and Satan is ever a forsaker of man." (29)
If it turns out right, he may still reproach himself for various reasons: first, if he knew the reasoning behind it, he could convince others and they could benefit together; second, if he knew the reasoning, he would not stop at that one action and might go deeper to acquire more knowledge and do more correct deeds; third, if he knew the wisdom behind it, in trials and tribulations where conditions change (place, time, person, etc.) and access to the source of truth becomes limited, he would not weaken and would emerge successfully. This is further explained in the section Verse 8 of Surah al-'Ankabut.
Parent page: Verses Condemning Following without Knowledge