‌Context & Objective: The concept of ḥaqq (right) is foundational in Imami jurisprudence and Islamic law, organizing a major portion of legal relations. However, determining its nature and relationship with ḥokm (legal ruling) remains a longstanding problem affecting practical consequences—such as esqāṭ (waiver or extinguishment of a right) and transferability—and the boundary between rights, rulings, malekīyat (ownership), and velāyat (legal guardianship). This study examines instituted rights (ḥaqq-e eʿtebārī, a normative position established by legal or rational convention) in their specific sense, whether founded by the Divine Lawgiver or through rational convention (banā-ye ʿoqalā) endorsed by the Lawgiver, excluding general lexical usages or uninstituted moral rights. Classical doctrines and prior studies mainly analyze rights through external effects or reduce them to weak dominion, ownership, or unspecified constructs, without reconstructing a framework centered on a preferential legal position alongside tašāḥ (competing claims or potential rivalry over a legal subject). Accordingly, this study investigates the nature of a right in Imami jurisprudence, the critiques of classical theories, the constitutive elements of a right as a preferential legal position, the typology of tašāḥ, theoretical objections, and the distinction between a right and guardianship.
 ‌Method & Approach: This research employs a doctrinal method with an ejtehādī (independent jurisprudential reasoning) approach. First, jurisprudential and legal-theoretical views on the nature of a right are gathered and their foundations and criteria are analyzed. Second, these views are evaluated regarding their ability to comprehensively explain a right and distinguish it from adjacent concepts. Third, the framework of a right as a preferential legal position is reconstructed by analyzing its core elements: the right-holder's preferential legal position, tašāḥ, and regard for the right-holder's status (reʿāyat-e ḥāl-e zī-ḥaqq). Fourth, challenges to this framework are assessed, and finally, its efficacy is tested in distinguishing a right from guardianship, moving beyond mere reporting to analytically reconstruct the concept.
 ‌Findings: Classical jurisprudential theories fail to comprehensively explain all instances of a right. Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei's doctrine uniting ḥaqq and ḥokm reduces their distinction to waivability, overlooking differing legislative purposes and the nature of a right as a declaratory construct (eʿtebār-e vażʿī, a legal construct establishing a status or relationship) distinct from a prescriptive ruling (ḥokm-e taklīfī, a direct behavioral command). Mohammad Hossein Naini Gharavi's weak dominion (salṭanat-e żaʿīfah, limited legal control) theory fails because right and dominion overlap only partially: a minor ward holds the right of qeṣāṣ (retaliation in kind) or contractual option (ḫīyār) without dominion to exercise it, whereas the guardian holds dominion without holding the personal right. Sheikh Morteza Ansari's ownership (malekīyat) model cannot explain rights over non-ownable subjects, including ḥaqq-e taḥjīr (priority acquired by marking wasteland), ḥaqq-e eḫteṣāṣ (exclusive priority over non-ownable impure substances), and seating priority in a mosque. Meanwhile, Sheikh Muhammad Kazim Khurasani and Imam Khomeini's "special legal construct" (eʿtebār-e ḫāṣṣ) lacks positive criteria, and Moḥaqqeq Eṣfahānī's view of multiple meanings varying by subject overlooks the unified rational concept of a right. Engaging critically with Hohfeldian analysis, will theory, and interest theory, this study defines a right through its genus as a declaratory construct, its differentia as a preferential legal position, its legislative criterion as regard for a specific person's protectable status, and tašāḥ—categorized into actual (feʿlī), potential (šaʾnī or taqdīrī), and rational (ʿoqalāʾī), alongside comparative priority (aḥaqqīyat)—as the constitutive relational context of preference. Correlative duties, liberties, powers, third-party interests, direct material benefit, valid dispositions, non-interference, waivability, and transferability are secondary effects rather than constitutive elements, enabling this definition to explain ḥeżānat (child custody), šofʿah (co-owner's pre-emption right), taḥjīr, qeṣāṣ, ḥaqq-e deyn (creditor's claim right), eḫteṣāṣ, and non-waivable rights.
 ‌Conclusion: Evaluating theoretical objections demonstrates that grounding a preferential legal position in tašāḥ and regard for the right-holder's status distinguishes a right from mere statutory recognition or the power to impose one's will, while conflicts between rights belong to the stage of exercise rather than definition. Furthermore, although a right and guardianship are both declaratory constructs sharing external effects like valid dispositions and non-interference, they differ in the purpose of their institution: a right is instituted in the context of tašāḥ out of regard for the right-holder's status, whereas guardianship is instituted to secure the best interests of the ward (mowlā-ʿalayh), even when competing claimants hold a preferential right (ḥaqq-e velāyat or ḥaqq-e ḥeżānat) to assume that office. Ultimately, this framework provides an independent criterion for distinguishing rights from ownership, dominion, rulings, and guardianship, clarifies the binding relationship between right-holders and duty-bearers, and offers a foundation for redefining civil and family law institutions.