[1] 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.

[citation needed] The book has been called "substantial"[2] and responsible for securing Khomeini's "reputation in the early 1960s",[4] and raising his "status as a jurist".

"[6] The book lists 4,400 problems, most of which are on personal religious issues such as ritual purity, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, charitable giving.

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.

[14] Tahrir al-Vasileh also lists 15 "Tributary Conditions”—non-financial regulations on non-Muslims—these include some outside the bounds of equal rights for minorities: Ghena (a kind of music) is forbidden.

[16] Khomeini's ruling on the subject appears under a subsection titled "The Changing of Sex" within the section on "The Examination of Contemporary Questions (al-masa’il al-mustahdithah)".

[16] While Tahrir al-Wassilah has been called "substantial" and responsible for raising Khomeini's "status as a jurist", one critic alleges the book was actually of poor quality.

[18]According to author Asghar Schirazi, even when the Khomeini attempts to update fiqh with a section on "new occurrences", "the solutions offered would be too primitive and meager to meet the needs of a 20th-century society."

According to the fatawa of Tahrir al-Wassilah, Listening to the radio or watching television is frequently forbidden or only allowed provided it does not contradict the shari’a.

They only deal with whether or when the activities violate Islam law; nothing on issues such as the minimum reserve requirements to make sure withdrawals can be paid if there is a run on a bank, or regulations to guarantee the solvency of an insurer.