Grand Ayatollah Shirazi discusses difference between “Eiza” and “Ta’azzi”
The daily scholarly meeting of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadiq al-Hosseini al-Shirazi was held on Friday, the 28th of Rajab. In this session, like the previous meetings, the Marja answered the questions of the attendees about various jurisprudence issues.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi discussed the difference between “Eiza” and “Ta’azzi”, and said: “Eiza” means that a person hurts others with his actions, and his purpose in doing this is to harm others, but “Ta’azzi” means that others are hurt by the same act, but the doer of the act does not intend to hurt others.
His Eminence went on to say: With regard to Ta’azzi, based on the benchmark phrase “Rofi’a ma la ya’alamun”, that is, there is no obligation on a person regarding what they do not know, there is no obligation on a person who does not do an act with the intention of hurting others. Because there is no reason from hadith to indicate Ta’azzi is haram. But there are various reasons from hadith to indicate Eiza is haram, including the instruction in hadith, “Don’t hurt anyone.”
Citing an example regarding Ta’azzi, he said: If a person opens a bakery in an area, and another person opens another bakery in the same area without the intention of harming others. Here, the first baker will naturally suffer, because he will have fewer customers. Based on perception of the religious people, this act of the second baker is not haram, despite the fact that it will bring monetary harm to other people.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi continued to emphasize: wherever there is Eiza, naturally there is often Ta’azzi, but not the other way around, because doing something may be an example of Ta’azzi, but not Eiza. There are two conditions for Eiza to materialize: firstly, one does an action with the intention of hurting others, and secondly, the action causes annoyance to others based on Urf. In any case, there is no reason from hadith to indicate Ta’azzi alone is haram, without one of these two mentioned conditions being true about the act.
In relation to upholding the mourning of Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, which may sometimes cause annoyance to the neighbours, the Marja said: During mourning, if the sound of mourning is so loud that it causes annoyance to the neighbors, it is not permissible. Here, the perception of the religious people is the criterion for determining this issue, and so, if it does not consider this action to be a cause of annoyance to others, even if a number of people are annoyed, it is not haram; Rather, mourning Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, is a virtuous act and one of the Divine rites.
