Abstract
Testamentary guardianship (waṣiyyat ʿahdī), as one of the most fundamental legal institutions for organizing posthumous affairs, has always been a focal point for jurists and legal scholars. However, one of the most challenging issues in this area is determining the “time of validity of the executor’s required qualifications and attributes” (reason, maturity, Islam, and justice). There is a fundamental disagreement among Imamiyyah jurists on this issue, and despite its undeniable practical importance, the Iranian Civil Code has not adopted a clear position. This legislative silence has further fueled disagreements among legal scholars. The present study, employing a descriptive-analytical method and relying on library sources, while explaining and critically examining the arguments of each of the five prevailing views on this issue, seeks to answer the question: at what point in time must the aforementioned qualifications in the executor be established? The research findings indicate that four views (validity at the time of the will; concurrent validity at the time of the will and death; continuous validity until the time of death; and continuous validity until the end of the executorship) all face fundamental problems. The common point among these four views is their insistence on “the realization of qualifications from the time of the will,” whereas this premise has been thoroughly critiqued and refuted in the present study. In contrast, the view that “the validity of the executor’s qualifications only at the time of the testator’s death,” which is based on the unilateral (īqāʿ) and suspended nature of testamentary guardianship, enjoys theoretical soundness and strong evidential support. According to this theory—which is fully consistent with Articles