Tahrir al-Wasilah (; Exegesis of the Means of Salvation or Commentaries on the Liberation of the Intercession; in Tahrir al-Vasileh) is a book by Ayatollah Khomeini as a commentary on a traditional theological text, and as a guide for Shia jurists on the opinions of Khomeini.
The book was part of the centuries-old tradition of commentaries on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) commonly written by leading Shia clerics working toward the status of Marja, for the use of their students and fellow clerics. The "Means" or "Intercession" this book was commenting on was Wasileh un-Nejat, (The Means of Salvation), by S. Abul-Hasan Isfahani. Khomeini's commentary covered socio-political issues such as jihad and "ordering the good and forbidding the evil", that had been abandoned by his contemporaries.
Written during Khomeini's exile, the book was started in 1964 in Turkey and finished in Iraq and comes in two volumes and four editions. The book has been called "substantial" and responsible for securing Khomeini's "reputation in the early 1960s", and raising his "status as a jurist". The book later became the subject of commentaries itself.
Title
The book is known as Tahrirolvasyleh in Persian. It has been published under the title Kitab al-Fiqh, and the website of Ayatollah Muhammad Fazel Lankarani has listed the book under the title Tafsil-al-Shariah.
Content
Following the traditional form, the book is made up of responses or fatwas "either presented in the form of answers to concrete questions relating to the ritual or material life of believers, or as methodical exercises whose purpose is to formulate possible answers to speculative questions."
The book lists 4,400 problems, most of which are on personal religious issues such as ritual purity, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, charitable giving. Slightly more than 1,000 of the questions concern public law directly or indirectly.
18.2% of the questions deal with regulations pertaining to ritual purity and prayer (salat). 16% of the (questions and) solutions "deal with questions about Islamic taxes (Khums, zakat and taxes relating to waqf foundations)." (These, combined with ritual purity and prayer, traditionally come under the heading of worship ('ebadat)). 14.1% are concerned with the Hudud (punishments for theft, fornication and adultery (zina), consumption of alcohol, and apostasy) About 1%, (51 questions), deal with defense (defa') Almost 3% (129 questions), deal with enjoining the good and forbidding the evil. About 1%, (44 questions) deal with the adherents of "religions of the Book" (ahl-e zemmeh or Dhimmi) 2.3% (105 questions), with new occurrences (mostahdasat) 25.3% (1,116) of the questions are directly or indirectly connected with public laws. Including khoms tax, enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, defense and relations with Christians and Jews.
Author Baqer Moin noted Khomeini dealt with the question of Islamic government, stating that the Imam, or leader of the Muslim community, has the right to fix prices and otherwise regulate commerce if he feels it is "in the interest of Islamic society". He also dealt with the issue of foreign policy and the necessity of preventing "the Muslim community from falling under the influence of foreigners".
At least as of April 2013 a text of the book (or much of it) translated into English and organized with an index divided the book into 120 or so links can be found online. The book is divided into 20 sections, each which may have between one and thirty links depending on its length. Excerpts from the book translated into English can also be found in the book A Clarification of Questions: an Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael by Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, Translated by J. Borujerdi, with a Foreword by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Westview Press/ Boulder and London, c1984.
"New occurrences" According to author Asghar Schirazi, Khomeini attempted to update shari’ah law in his Tahrir al-Vasileh with 105 legal rulings (fatawa) for the modern world on mostahdasat or "new occurrences": 10 on insurance, 6 on foreign exchange bureaux, 8 on paying indemnity, 12 on banks, 7 on lotteries, 10 on artificial insemination, 7 on autopsy and organ transplantation, 10 on sex change, 11 on radio, television, etc., 18 on prayer and fasting in aeroplane or at the earth's poles, and 6 on outer space.