Muslim Law

A detailed Summary of Muslim Law

THE SHARÎ'A, OR ISLAMIC CODE OF CONDUCT Medieval Muslim society in word and deed aspired to discern and obey the will of God. In every thought, word, and action man was accountable to God on the Day of Judgment. Hence, Muslim social ideals were humanist ideals-the balanced and harmonious development of the human faculties or the creation of a man-conceived utopia on earth, for example. A New World for Muslims could only mean one in which they had discovered God's Will and were obeying it more fully than before. Society was thought of, moreover, as a situation that human beings were forced to accept, rather than a series of relationships that might be transformed into willing partnerships for mutual companionship and welfare. The Muslim's individual relationship to God, however, was not stressed at the expense of social order. Belief in God and His Prophet implied acceptance of the Sharî'a revealed through the Qur'an and the Sunna of Muhammad. This Sharî'a governed both doctrine and practice. It defined not merely right belief about God's Unity, His Power, and His Knowledge, but also those external acts of devotion-personal, e.g., prayer or pilgrimage, or social, e.g. almsgiving, avoidance of usury, maintenance of certain discrimin

ations against the unbeliever-compliance with which attested one's membership in God's community before the eyes of the world. The Sharî'a set the perfect standard for earthly society; it was the practical embodiment of the unity of the distinctive ideology of Islam. As has been explained above, the Qur'an and the Sunna of the prophet were, after his death, the two chief sources of guidance to the believer hence of the Sharî'a.... To later generations, the knowledge of the Sharî'a is authoritatively communicated through the systems of jurisprudence worked out by the orthodox schools of law. Jurisprudence is the science of deducing the mandates of the Sharî'a from its bases in the Qur'an and Sunna, and, in addition to the laws regulating ritual and religious observance it embraces family law, the law of inheritance, property and contract, criminal law, constitutional law, and the conduct of war. From the Muslim viewpoint ultimate obligation to obey regulations in any section of the Sharî'a is religious one. They are all equally commands of Allah. Moreover, according to the jurists, every human action may be evaluated in one or another of five categories: commanded, recommended, legally indifferent, reprobated, or forbidden by God Himself. According to the dominant Sunni theory, unambiguous commands prohibitions in the Qur'an or in the authenticated Sunna excluded the use of human reason and determination, except insofar as the resources of philology or lexicography were necessary to establish the literal sense of the text. However, when points of law or conduct not c

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Approximate Word count = 1062
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Religion