The Supreme Judicial Position
Sayyid Radi while holding the office of NaqibunNaqaba was simultaneously heading the highest office of the judiciary known as Diwani-Mazalim, which is equivalent to the Supreme Court of Justice, was responsible for the issuance of the final judicial sentence and as its execution.
The historical reason for the creation of Diwani-Mazalim was that under the rule of Abbasids Caliphate, the judicial system consisted of judges appointed for each city, who were responsible for looking into judicial matters and for the issuance of final judicial verdicts. In addition to these local judges for large cities or for a few smaller cities, there were chief judges Qazi-ul-Quzzat, who were responsible for looking into important cases.
But occasionally there were some complicated files which were considered beyond the jurisdiction of chief judges and were forwarded to the center of the caliphate to be finally resolved by the ruling caliph.
The caliph either themselves issued the final judicial verdicts in these cases or appointed a great learned Jurisprudent as the head of Diwani-Mazalim, who resolved these complicated cases by issuing the final judicial verdict on behalf of the ruling caliph. Due to these considerations the head of Diwani-Mazalim, in addition to his being a learned Mujtahid1 (Jurisprudent), was also supposed to be a total manifestation of piety, dignity, and contentment possessing an influential and distinguished social personality.
Since the unique and exalted personality of Sayyid Radi possessed all these distinctions and merits, he was appointed by the caliphs for this position during his youth, and he discharged all these assigned duties in an excellent manner.
- 1. Mujtahid "An authority on Divine law who practices ijtihad, that is, "the search for a correct opinion ... in deducing of the specific provisions of the law from its principles and ordinances (Muhammad Sanglaji, Qaza dar Islam (Tehran, 1338 Sh./1959), p. 14."-Hamid Algar, Islam and Revolution, p. 150.