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What is Islamic Sharia?
Part 1
Humanist International, Lausanne , Switzerland
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What is Shariat? This is an ancient Islamic question which has recently acquired great importance. There
are Islamic Shariah courts in many Islamic countries; many modern Islamic military dictators and absolutist monarchies, as in Saudi Arabia, use the Islamic Shariah to suppress opposition to their fascist rules; many modern klashankov-carrying-Islamic-mullahs talk of imposing Allah’s Shariat, or Shariati-i-Mohammadi; or just Shariat. Many modern Islamic political parties in different Islamic countries as well as some Muslim religious leaders in many European countries like Canada, UK, France, Sweden etc. want Shariat courts for the Muslim communities. Therefore such questions arise anew in our heads as to: why Islamic Shariah in the presence of modern civil codes ? Did Allah ever ordered the imposition and implementation of the so-called “Allah’s Sharah”-as described the mullahs? Did Prophet Mohammed ever ordered or advised
imposition of the so-called “Shariat-i-Mohammedi”?There are more than 73 sects in Islam. whose Shariati then? Has the Koran or Hadith ever commanded or recommended the introduction, or imposition, of the Shariah in Islamic countries or Muslim communities in non-Muslim countries…? Let’s discuss…!
The Concept of Islamic Sharia as evolved by Islamic mullahs and as practiced and imposed by many Islamic states is controversial in Islamic religion, for reasons that although Islam is essentially a religion based on the Prophet Muhammad’s claim to have received revelations from his
proclaimed creator deity the Arabian ALLAH through the agency of the angel Gabriel; this word SHARIAH does not give any legal connotation or meaning in the collection of revelation, the Koran or Quran;
(The word Shariah appeared in Koran 5 times as noun or as verb:
Sura 5:48: “We have revealed to you, [O Muúammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it. So judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations away from what has come to you of the truth. To each of you We prescribed a (Shariah, divine (ordinance, law Guidance and a method (Rah-i-Amal)). Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation [united in religion], but [He intended] to test you in what He has given you; so race to [all that is] good. To Allah is your return all together and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ.”
Sura 7:63: Then do you wonder that there has come to you a reminder (Koran / message) from your Lord through a man from among you, that he may warn you and that you may fear Allah so you might receive mercy.";
Sura 42:13: “He has ordained for (assigned to) you of religion what He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus – to establish the religion and not be divided therein. Difficult for those who associate others with Allah is that to which you invite them. Allah chooses for Himself whom He wills and guides to Himself whoever turns back [to Him ;
Sura 42:21; ”Or have they other deities who have ordained for them a religion to which Allah has not consented? But if not for the decisive word, it would have been concluded between them. And indeed, the wrongdoers will have a painful punishment;
Sura 45:18; “Then We put you, [O Muhammad], on an ordained way concerning the matter [of religion]; so follow it and do not follow the inclinations of those who do not know”.
(Translations from: 1.The Bounteous Koran,: translation by Dr. M M Malik, authorized by
Al-Azhar University , Cairo , Egypt
2. The Glorious Qoran, puiblished by Translated by Abul Qasim Publishing House, 1997, (Al Muntada Al Islami) King Fahd National Library Cataloging in Publication Data)
The term Shariah means "way" or "path of the water from its source"; and in Islamic religious vocabulary (Arabic: شريعة transliteration: Šarī‘ah), it has unjustly acquired the meaning for the body of Islamic law (notwithstanding the fact that there is a specific word Qanoon for law in Koran; so Shariah is not exactly Law but Divine principles of guidance as they appear in the Holy Quran). It is the medieval legal framework within which the public and most private aspects of life were regulated for those living in a Muslim society and, therefore, were under the legal system based on medieval Muslim principles of jurisprudence; in spite of whatever the Holy Koran, Hadith or the country’s Constitution and Civic/Criminal legal code might have dictated.
This Medieval Sharia misconception tried to interfere in all aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues, as it triess to day in the nodern
age.
There is no strictly codified set of laws pertaining to Shariah. It is more like a medieval system of devising laws, based on the principles of Quran (holy book of Islam). The Hadith (the reported sayings and actions of Muhammad) was not mentioned in the Holy Quran and so it is wrong to include it in the Koranic concept of Shariah; it is also a fact that the word Shariah doesn’t appear in the Hadith at all. Further the centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent were indeed in accordance to their time and are not applicable today, according to principles laid down in the Holy Quran as cited above. However, contrary to the Ordinance of the Holy Quran, today Shariah has been artificially concocted to comprise of 11 different elements of which Holy Koran is just one element or source.
Before 19th century, legal theory was considered the domain of the traditional legal schools of thought. Most Sunni Muslims follow Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki or Shafii, while most Shia Muslims follow Jaafari (Hallaq 1997, Brown 1996, Aslan 2006).
Etymology
The term Shariah itself derives from the noun "Shara’a" (Arabic: شرع), which, according to Abdul Mannan Omar's "Dictionary of the Holy Quran" is a later-day created term somehow mysteriously and contrary to the ordinance of the Holy Koran and even Hadith, it is mistakenly made to connect to the idea of "system of divine law; way of belief and practice"-which include many things other than the words of Allah![
Legal scholar L. Ali Khan explains that "the concept of Sharia has been thoroughly confused in legal and common literature. For some Muslims, Sharia consists only of the Quran-the way of Allah as found in Quran; for some, of the Quran and Sunnah. For others, it also includes classical as well as the new Fiqh. Most encyclopedias today mistakenly define the term Sharia as law derived from the Quran, and erraneously, also from the Sunna, and classical
Fiqh, consensus (Ijma) and analogy (Qiyas). This definition of Sharia inappropriately lumps together the revealed words of Allah with the unrevealed man-made opinions and presumptions and inventions. This blending of sources has created a very muddled assumption that the Sunnah-Prophet’s opinions are as important as the Quran-the words of Allah, (thus committing the sin of “Shirk”-which Allah renounces all through the Holy Quran; and that the so-called scholarly interpretations and the fatwas of the ignorant Mullahs are as sacred and beyond revision as are the Quran).
The Quran is called Allah’s word, and constitute the
Muslim’s immutable Basic Code of Islam; it is claimed to be present in its original form.
THE SUNNAH: while the Sunnah consists of the supposed words and deeds of Prophet Muhammad during his life time; the Sunnah-collection was started some 200-250 years after the demise of the Prophet of Islam and not all of them agree with one another or with the words and spirit of Quran.
(A lots of Hadiths are attributed to the following unreasonable and unbelievable sources, for example: 1. Hazrat Ayesha-the youngest of the 11 wives of Prophet Muhammad was, according to the Hadith Book-The Sahih Bukhari- only 9 years old when she came to 53 years old Prophet’s household as his wife and when the marriage of consummated. It is a fact that a lot of Hadiths are attributed to this little child-bride. It is absurd as how could anyone build the grand
building of Shariah-the Islamic legal code on the testimony of this little girl; while only very few Hadiths are attributed to the other adult and mature wives of Muhammad, who could have been more trustworthy. Moreover, only very few Hadiths are attributed to the four Sahabah, all of them very near and dear to Prophet who later became the Khulafaa-e-Rashid: Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali.
2. Abu Hurerra: a mystical and secretive figure is known to be a source of a lot of Hadiths (more than 5000); he supposedly lived in Prophet’s company only
for only about 2 months sometimes before his demise; nobody knows his real name, identity, tribe, nationality etc. Abu Hurerra in Arabic means “Father of the Cats”-; and most of the Hadiths attributed to him are found to be exact words, phrases and sentences from the Christian Bible; and it is also a fact that when Omar became khalifa, he appointed Abu Hurraia governor of Bahrain in 21 Hijra, but dismissed him because of financial and other corruption…!)
Nor are the other sources of the Hadiths really so credible: many Hadiths although narrated by pious Muslims were found to be incredible and absurd, and therefore called Weak Hadiths to the extent that out of more than 600,000 Hadiths collected by Bukhari, Muslim and others, only around 6000 (just 1%) were found to be credible although all the other narrators were pious Muslims of their time. Moreover, the criteria for judging Hadiths were medieval and unscientific involving personal, family, tribal and racial as well religious/sectarian prejudices. It remains a controversy as to why the main schools of thought refused recognition of Nissai collection of Hadiths raising many questions.
Another important question has been the mixing of Quran and Hadiths, it was often difficult to find out what Prophet said at a particular time was Revelation or his personal opinion. This was further complicated by the fact that the Quran seems to have only a few general principles applicable beyond particular time periods while others were just phrases or comments or guidelines applicable only to particular situations of the time and space, like ordinances on the eve of “War of Khundaq” were only a response to a particular situation and were not applicable to other situations then, and so are not applicable today. Such time-limited guidelines when applied 1600 years later create not only Islamic fundamentalism and extremism but also a medieval social environment and thus mental and social backwardness as well as political, administrative and cultural retrogression.
Many believe that these difference sources of Shaiah should not be given equal importance and that as a matter of principle these should be valued and kept separate and be given lesser importance from the Holy Koran, should be differentiated from one another and from the ever-evolving interpretive law (Fiqh). This analytical separation between the Koran: the Basic Code, the Hadith: the Secondary Code (where it explains the Quran and dosent go against it): the Fiqh- the Tertiary Code, and the later Schools of Thoughts of Five Imams, the judgments, opinions,
Fatwas of mullahs etc. all these were product of their time and are not applicable beyond their period, and therefore can not be given importance and value except as historical documents. It is, therefore, necessary to dissipate confusion around the term Sharia, which is further complicated by the illegitimate borrowings of barbaric religious laws, of Death Penalty for Apostasy and Blasphemy, and Stoning to death of women on charges of adultery, from the Torah of Jews and the Bible of Christians; such punishments are not decreed in the Quran, and although otherwise Muslim scholars allege that the Torah and the Bible had been thoroughly corrupted and changed, some mullahs dishonestly borrow stricter punishments not found in Quran, thus giving bad name to Islam.
Above all, the controversy remains of the long term application of the different elements of the Shariah-code.
· Are the legal Shariah-codes evolved 1000-1600 years ago for a particular time period still applicable today, while Quran doesn’t make any such claims?
· Are the decisions of the medieval mullah of 1000-1600 years ago still binding on Muslims today?
· How to reconcile the enormous progress in science and technology; in social sciences, philosophy, law and humanities with 1000-1600 years old medieval ignorance of the mullahs?
· How to reconcile modern and rational tools of argument and anylysis, the modern liberal and secular sensibilities with the ordinances of inferior positon of women in the so-called Islamic Shariah or with the permanent inferior status of non-Muslims in Islamic state and society, or with the mullah’s interpretation of some Koranic ordinance about conquering the whole world for Islam and of imposing the medieval shariah-code over the whole world?
General
Many mainstream Islamic scholars distinguishes between fiqh ("understanding of details"), which refers to the inferences drawn by scholars, and Sharia, which refers to the principles that lie behind the fiqh. Scholars hope that fiqh
and Sharia are in harmony in any given case, but they cannot be sure.[2]
Sharia has certain laws which are regarded as divinely ordained, concrete and timeless for all relevant situations (for example, the ban against drinking liquor as an intoxicant; although Pakistani Mullahs restrict this ban only on “alcohlic drinks”, but allow Charas-smoking and the deadly Heroine as not banned by Islam-they get 10% of the profits of the Heroine smuggling for such such “Fatwas” which they use for buying klasnkovs for their Islamic
jihadi terrorism!) The Koran also has certain laws from which certain principles had been derived by analogy etc. as established by Islamic lawyers and judges (mujtahidun), however in most cases the anologies go too far and really seem absurd.
*The primary sources of Islamic law is the
Qur'an; the Sunnah where its truth and correctness is established, is used to understand the Holy Koran, provided it doesn’t go against it and doesn’t invent things from outside the Holy Koran.
*To this, traditional Sunni Muslims illegitimately add the
unanimity (ijma) of Muhammad's companions (sahaba) on certain issues, and drawing analogy from the essence of divine principles (qiyas). In situations where no concrete rules exist under the sources, law scholars use Qiyas — various forms of medieval reasoning, including the analogy. The consensus of the community or people, public interest, and other such factors also has been accepted as secondary sources, in circumstances where the first four primary sources do not clear the confusion. Here mention must be made of the fact that various sects of Sunni Islam differ from each other in the contents of the Shariah: there
being many (more than 73) such sects like Brelvi, Deobandi, Wahabi, Salafi, Tauhidya etc., and each of these sects have many sub-sects, and each of these sub-sects have their own schools or madrassas which issue their own distinct version of Islamic shariah through their Fatwas, thus confusing the Shariah situation to complete chaos! The practical fact remains that in present circumstances a Mullah’s fatwa carry more weight than Allah’s decrees: Allah seems far away in the skies, unable to speak or express his decrees himself directly while ubiquitous Mullah is next door, ready with his fatwas of apostacy, blasphemy and other such barbaric pronouncements and punishments along with his private army of religious students-the local Taliban- and his nation wide semi-terrorist mullah-organizaions.
It is also a sad fact that in most Islamic counttries, for the reasons stated above, the law courts practically give more weight to mullahs’s fatwas than to Allh’s words, it is a SHAME, of course!
Similarly many mullahs have started their own movements for impositon of their unique version of the Islamic Shariah through the evil agency of
Klashankov-carrying religious fanatics and student called Taliban, thus confusing politics and religion and creating a civil war-like situation; obvious example is the “Shariat e Muhammadi Movement” in Malakand, now spreading to Swat in Pakistan!
At the same time each Islamic country has its own particular variety of Shariah-code comletely different and sometimes opposite to the Shariah-code in other Islamic
countries. For example, Saudi Islamic Shariah-code allows slavery, it allows free sex with female slaves without marriage or nikah; (and practically with foreign Muslim female servants, nurses and domestics who are treated as modern form of female sex slaves). While in Sudan and Pakistan
Shi'a Muslims, on the other hand, reject this approach. They strongly reject analogy (qiyas) as an easy way to innovations (bid'ah), and also reject consensus (ijma) as having any particular value on its own, particularly
some scholars suspect “Political Expeditions” as the motivations behind these Islamic innovations. During the period when the Sunni scholars developed these two tools, the Shi'a Imams were alive, and Shi'a view them as an extension of the Sunnah, so they view themselves as only deriving their laws (fiqh) from the Qur'an and Sunnah. A re-occurring theme in Shi'a jurisprudence is logic (mantiq),[3] something Shi'a believe, mention, employ and value to a higher degree than Sunnis who prefer to follow whatever they hear from their sources. The Sunnis-they do not view logic as a third source for laws, rather they take it as a way to judge if the derived work is directly or indirectly compatible with the Qur'an and Sunnah.
In Imami-Shi'i law, the sources of law (usul al-fiqh) are the Qur'an, anecdotes of Muhammad's practices and those of the 12 Imams, and the intellect (aql). The practices called Sharia in Shias today, however, also have roots in local customs (al-urf). But the modern Iranian Islam mimic Hitler’s Nazi-ism and Stalin’s fascist Communism more than it resembles any logical version of Islamic tradition and seems to be totally devoid of any Logic, whatsoever. Recently 1000 women were arrested in one week in just one province of Iran for not following the Islamic dress code of the so-called Shariah; although the Holy Quran never prescribed any particular Islamic dress, nor did the Holy Prophet; thus such actions on the name of Shariah open the gates for repression and fascism!
Islamic jurisprudence is called Fiqh and is divided into two parts:
· Usul al-fiqh — roots of the law: the study of the sources and methodology
· Furu' al-Fiqh — branches of the law: the practical rules. The comprehensive nature of Sharia law is due to the belief that the law must provide all that is necessary for a person's spiritual
and physical well-being. All possible actions of a Muslim are divided (in principle) into five categories:
· Obligatory
· Meritorious
· Permissible
· Reprehensible
· Forbidden
Fundamental to the obligations of every Muslim are the Five Pillars of
Islam:
Although modern Mullahs like Maulana Maudoodi and Dr. Israr of Pakistan
· Cordial and unquestioning acceptance of Islam: That means total submission to Allah and His message and indirectly to mullahs, however untimely and absurd it might seem.
· Jihad in the name of Allah: Here these Mullahs view that a Muslim’s duty is to spread and impose Islam and its Shariah-code on the whole world, and that they may use or abuse any tactics including murders, bombs, deceits, lies, cheating, spreading false rumors, suicidal bombs,
attacks on women and children, tactical acceptance of Western Democracy as a way to capture power and then to destroy Democracy along with the Western Civilization etc. etc.; for the sake of what they call completion of Islamic message: Islam’s conquest and its rule over the whole world, where according to Shariah-code the non-Muslim population will pay a Jizya (non-Muslim tax), their women will become female sex slaves for Muslims and non-Muslims will always remain humiliated and socially inferior-as Hindus, Christians, Mirzais etc. are being treated in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan today!)
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