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Translator’s Preface
This book is a translated version of the book, “Muntakhab-ul-Masaa’il” based on the verdicts of His Eminence Grand Ayatollah Saanei. A brief glance at His Eminence’s verdicts would suffice to acknowledge Him as to be among the few Islamic jurists who, along with fidelity to the basics and principles of rule deduction (Ijtihad), have devoted special attention to the two elements of time and space as well as the needs of the new age and thus paved the way for the practicality of Islam’s jurisprudential rulings. In this regard, seeing masculinity as not being a condition for serving as judges, religious jurists, and in other ruling positions, equality between men and women and also between Muslims and non-Muslims in compensation, blood money, and retaliation, considering music as to be generally legal except for the music containing laxity and immorality, establishing the age of puberty for girls as to begin at thirteen lunar years of age (in the absence of the signs of puberty), giving mothers priority over paternal grandfathers in taking custody and guardianship of children in the absence of their fathers, counting all human beings as pure except for obstinate unbelievers who deny the truth despite knowing it, and taking merely the interest paid on depreciation as illegal usury but the one resulting from gainful employment of the principal as legal etc., are all indicative of His Eminence’s novel way of thinking and are worth mentioning.
Experts in the field would, no doubt, confirm how demanding and challenging the task of translating religious texts and books is. Nevertheless, I tried my best and hardest as to the fidelity of the translation to the original text, particularly in the case of those verdicts whose explanations had been presented together with jurisprudential principles and reasoning, and which contained lots of specialist jurisprudential, logical, and philosophical terms. The unavailability of the relevant references even added to the heaviness of the responsibility to convey the concepts in question. After all, with the help of Allah the Almighty, I managed to assume the responsibility and finish the work.
Finally, I would appreciate any enlightening and scholarly criticism and guidance by the experts in the field of translation which would definitely be helpful both in correcting the possible defects and to the betterment of the entire work.
Muhammad Yasser Kimyaei Far
March, 2007
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Translator’s Preface
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