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| Contents | ||
| This article forms part of the series Islam |
| Vocabulary of Islam |
| Five Pillars |
| Profession of faith |
| Prayer – Alms |
| Fasting |
| Pilgrimage to Mecca |
| Holy Cities |
| Mecca – Medina |
| Jerusalem |
| Najaf – Karbala – Kufa |
| Events |
| Hijra – Islamic calendar – Eid ul-Fitr |
| Eid ul-Adha – Aashura – Arba'in |
| Buildings |
| Mosque – Minaret |
| Mihrab – Kaaba |
| Islamic architecture |
| Functional Religious Roles |
| Muezzin – Imam – Mullah |
| Ayatollah – Mufti |
| Interpretive Texts & Practices |
| Qur'an – Hadith – Sunnah |
| Fiqh – Fatwa – Sharia |
| Sects |
| Sunni: Hanafi – Hanbali Maliki – Shafi'i |
| Shi'a: Ithna Asharia Ismailiyah – Zaiddiyah |
| Others: Mu'tazili – Kharijite |
| Movements |
| Sufism |
| Wahhabism – Salafism |
| Non-Mainstream Sects/Movements |
| Ahmadiyyah – Nation of Islam |
| Related Faiths |
| Druze – Bahá'í Faith |
Sharia ( Arabic شريعة also Shari'a and Shariah) is traditional Islamic law. Like most religious cultures, Islam classically drew no distinction between religious and secular life. Hence Sharia covers not only religious rituals, but many aspects of day-to-day life. However, this traditional view of religious law is opposed by modern liberal movements within Islam.
The main sources of Islamic law are the Qur'an and the Hadith, but ijma, the consensus of the community, was also accepted as a minor source. Qiyas, reasoning by analogy, was used by the law scholars ( Mujtahidun) to deal with situations where the sources provided no concrete rules. The practices called Sharia today, however, also have roots in local customs ( Al-urf).
The Islamic jurisprudence is called fiqh and is divided into two parts: the study of the sources and methodology (usul al-fiqh - roots of the law) and the practical rules (furu' al-fiqh - branches of the law).
When eating meat, Muslims may only eat from meat that has been slaughtered in the name of God, and meets stringent dietary requirements. Such meat is called pure, or halal. Islamic law prohibits a Muslim from eating pork, monkey, dog, cat, any carnivores, and several other types of animal, as these animals are haram (forbidden). For the meat of an animal to be halal (lawful) it must be one of the declared halal species, it must generally be slaughtered by a Muslim, and it may not be killed by excessively cruel or painful means. The traditional means of slaughter is by slicing open the jugular veins at the neck, resulting in quick blood loss; a state of shock and unconsciousness is induced, and death soon follows through cardiac arrest.
The animal does not have to be slaughtered by a Muslim, but may be slaughtered by a Jew or a Christian ( People of the Book) as long as it meets their strict dietary laws. Thus, Muslims will accept kosher meat as halal.
Islam does not prohibit women from working, but emphasizes the importance of caring for house and family for both parents. In theory, Islamic law allows each spouse to divorce at will, by saying "I divorce you" three times in public. In practice divorce is more involved than this and there may be separate state proceedings to follow as well. This practice is valid within most of the Muslim world today. Usually, the divorced wife keeps her dowry from when she was married, if there was one, and is given child support until the age of weaning at which point the child may be returned to its father if it is deemed to be best.
In addition, women are generally not allowed to be clergy or religious scholars. Many interpretations of Islamic law hold that women may not have prominent jobs, and thus are forbidden from working in the government. This has been a mainstream view in many Muslim nations in the last century, despite the example of Muhammad's wife AishaAisha or Ayesha ( Arabic for living was a wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Early life of Aisha It is not clear when she was born, as various traditions conflict. Her birth date has been calculated as anywhere from 605 to 613. She was the daughter of, who both took part in politics and was a major authority on hadith. Nevertheless, PakistanIslami Jamhuria Pakistan ( In Detail) ( In Detail) National motto: Iman, Ittehad, Nazm( Urdu: "Faith, Unity, Discipline" Official Language(s) Urdu, English Capital Islamabad Largest City Karachi President General Pervez Musharraf Prime Minister Shaukat Az, IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia the world's largest archipelago, is located between the Southeast Asian peninsula and Australia, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Indonesia borders Malaysia on the island of Borneo ( Kalimantan in Bahasa Indonesia), Papua N, TurkeyTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the, and BangladeshThe People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia that forms the eastern part of the ancient region of Bengal. Bangladesh literally means "The Country of Bengal". Lying north of the Bay of Bengal, on land it borders India almost exclusively,, all predominantly Muslim nations, have had female heads of government or state (e.g. Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto (born June 21, 1953) became the first woman to lead a Muslim country in modern times when she was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed in a coup 20 months later. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three y, Megawati SukarnoputriDiah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri (born 23 January 1947), was President of Indonesia from July 2001 to 20 October 2004. She was defeated for re-election in the 2004 Indonesian presidential election on 20 September. Some Indonesian sources spell, Tansu Ciller and Khaleda Zia respectively).
A Muslim may not marry or remain married to an unbeliever of either sex ( 2:221, 60 :10). A Muslim man may marry a woman of the People of the Book ( 5 :5); traditionally, however, Islamic law forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man.
The Qur'an also places a dress code upon its followers. For women, it emphasizes modesty without an overt call for any specific covering of any body part; men have a dress code which is more relaxed: the loins must be covered from knee to waist. The rationale given for these rules is that men and women are not to be viewed as sexual objects. In practice, men dictate what women are allowed to wear in many culturally Islamic countries. Infringement of these rules in some "Muslim" nations may result in beatings. Some view Islamic women as being oppressed by the men in their communities because of the required dress codes. However, some Muslim women choose to follow a dress code because they believe it is an order from Allah. One of the garments women are required to wear is the hijab (of which the headscarf is one component). The word hijab is derived from the Arabic word hijaba which means "to hide from sight or view", "to conceal". Hijab means to cover the head as well as the body.
According to most interpretations, authorization for the husband to physically beat disobedient wives is given in the Qur'an. First, admonishment is verbal and secondly a period of refraining from intimate relations. Finally, if the husband deems the situation appropriate, he may hit her:
The medieval jurist ash- Shafi'i, founder of one of the main schools of fiqh, commented on this verse that "hitting is permitted, but not hitting is preferable." Early jurists added that the hitting specified should only be with a miswak, or small toothbrush, interpreting it in light of the Hadith “If it were not for the fear of retaliation on the Day of Resurrection, I would have hit you with this miswak (tooth-cleaning stick).” (Reported by Ibn Sa`d in his Tabaqat)[1].
The Arabic verse uses idribûhunna (from the root daraba ضرب), whose commonest meaning in Arabic has been rendered as "beat", "hit", "scourge", or "strike". Besides this verse, other meanings for daraba used in the Quran (though not with a human direct object) include "to travel", "to make a simile", "to cover", "to separate", and "to go abroad", among others. For this reason - particularly in recent years (eg Ahmed Ali , Edip Yuksel ) - some consider "hit" to be a misinterpretation, and believe it should be translated as "admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and separate from them". Certain modern translations of the Qur'an in the English language accept the commoner translation of "beat", but tone down the wording with bracketed additions.
Several Hadith urge strongly against beating one's wife, such as: "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her? (Al- Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43), "I went to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them. ( Sunan Abu-Dawud , Book 11, Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah), Number 2139)". However, some suggest that these Hadith were later abrogated, noting that in the Farewell Pilgrimage, he said:
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research , says that:
" Honor killings" are, in the Western world, often erroneously identified as part of Islamic teaching, though they are in fact a cultural practice which is neither exclusive to, nor universal within, the Islamic world. Such killings take place within the Muslim communities around the Mediterranean as well as in Bangladesh, Brazil, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Punjab in India[4], and non-Muslim parts of West Africa; while in Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, the status of the practice is unknown.
The stated reason for honor killings is the belief that the woman had caused the clan or family to lose honour by her alleged sexual activity and therefore deserved to be killed. Islamic teaching holds that life is given by Allah and should not be taken lightly, but it
allows severe punishment, up to and including capital punishment, for certain kinds of crime; these include, in strict interpretations, all extramarital sexual relations (zina
Nevertheless it is justified on religious grounds both by Muslims and Christians who practice it, mostly in parts of Africa. As an example, the Egyptian-born president of the 'European Council on Fatwa and Research', Yusuf al-Qaradawi, although acknowledging the religious nature of this is disputed, nevertheless publicly expresses his personal preference for reduction of the size of the clitoris Fatwa on islamonline.net, but made it clear that it's not obligatory.
The use of the term 'circumcision' is highly confusing, as the practice ranges from a mild superficial act that does not reduce any physiological function (the 'real' circumcision), to various forms of partial or even complete removal of female genital organs. In certain countries, this is accompanied by reducing the genital opening. These forms are, because of their brutal nature, also referred to as female genital mutilation ( FGM). This terms is most often used in official publications from the United Nations and World Health Organization. Needless to say that under common legal practice in all modern states, all these forms except for qualify as mutilation.
Laylat ul Bara'ah
In some interpretations of an Islamic state, conversion by Muslims to other religions is forbidden and is termed apostasy. In Muslim theology, apostasy resembles the crime of treason, the betrayal of one's own country. Penalties may include ostracism or even execution if they live or have lived in an "Islamic State" and are deemed enemies of the state. By analogy, in the age of nation states, a person who commits treason (turning state's secrets to a foreign power, or spies for a foreign power, etc) is subject to severe penalty—historically, death. In contrast, a person who lives in a Western country such as the United States (or even many Muslim countries) will suffer no significant penalty for converting to another religion.
Some people claim that Muslims who convert to Christianity can be at risk. See any of the works of Ibn Warraq, who claims to be an outspoken former Muslim. (However, it's important to note that none of Ibn Warraq's personal claims can be checked or confirmed, since he uses a pseudonym.) A well-known example of a Muslim "apostate" undergoing persecution is that of Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses prompted Khomeini to issue a Fatwa (religious opinion) for his execution. However, others suspect that Khomeini issued this fatwa more because of the lampooning of Khomeini himself that Rushdie included in his book.
The authority of Sharia is drawn from two major and two lesser sources. The first major source is specific guidance laid down in the Qur'an, and the second source is the Sunnah, literally the 'Way', i.e. the way that Muhammad (the Prophet of Islam) lived his life. (The compilation of all that Muhammad said, did, or approved of is called the Hadith.) A lesser source of authority is Qiyas, which is the extension by analogy of existing Sharia law to new situations.
Finally Sharia law can be based on ijma, or consensus. Justification for this final approach is drawn from the Hadith where Muhammad states; "My nation cannot agree on an error." The ummah, or community of Muslims, comes together with each applying his ijtihad, or independent thought and judgement, to achieve this consensus. The role of ulema, i.e. scholars, is critical, since they are the ones who study the Islamic law and therefore have authority to represent it. Sharia has largely been codified by the schools ( maddhabs) of Islamic Jurisprudence ( Fiqh).
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, and forbidden. Fundamental to the obligations of every muslim are the Five Pillars of Islam.
In theory, there is no conflict between the process as outlined by Muhammad and very progressive and consultative political movements, e.g. green parties. In fact, the latter even defined Four Pillars of the Green Party, to some degree in imitation of Islam's Five Pillars, and in admiration of the idea of a consensus-driven process of the whole community coming to some well-reasoned conclusion compatible with science and scholarship. In practice, however, there is often incredible tension between conservative, liberal or secular forces.
There is tremendous variation in the interpretation and implementation of Islamic laws in Muslim societies today. Some believe that colonialism, which often replaced religious laws with secular ones, caused this variation. More recently liberal movements within Islam have questioned the relevance and applicability of sharia from a variety of perspectives. As a result, several of the countries with the largest Muslim populations, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and India have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic provisions in family law. Turkey has a completely secular constitution.
Likewise, most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance. Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of jurisprudence. Sharia is also used in Sudan, Libya and for a time in modern Afghanistan. Some states in northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia courts. In practice the new Sharia courts in Nigeria have most often meant the re-introduction of relatively harsh punishments without respecting the much tougher rules of evidence and testimony, such as the necessity of four eyewitnesses, with a woman's testimony counting no less than that of a man. The punishments include amputation of one/both hand(s) for theft and stoning for adultery. Such measures are usually introduced to gain support of local ulema who are often community leaders in rural areas. Muslim scholars tend to agree that Muhammad himself would not run courts along these lines in an otherwise secular society, nor introduce these punishments into societies rich enough to afford prisons and rehabilitation and cohesive enough to prevent accused criminals from being killed by outraged victims and communities.
An unusual secular-state example is a Sharia arbitration court being established in Ontario, Canada. That province's 1991 arbitration court law allows disputes to be settled in alternative courts to avoid backing up the court system. The court would handle disputes between Muslim complainants. Its critics fear that the misogyny inherent in some forms of Sharia could end up influencing the Canadian justice system, but its proponents say those who do not wish to go by the court's rulings are not forced to attend it.
Like Jewish law and Christian canon law, Islamic law means different things to different people in different times and places. In the hands of moderates, religious law can be moderate, even liberal. In the hands of post-Englightenment readers of philosophy, religious law is relegated to ritual (as opposed to law in a civil sense), or even to just being history. In the hands of fundamentalists, it is legally binding on all people of the faith, and even on all people that come under their control. Islamic law to American Muslims in Dearborn, Boston, or Houston is a very different thing than Islamic law to religious Muslims in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gaza Strip, western China, Nigeria[5], Indonesia, or Pakistan. All of them are following Islamic law, yet it varies as much as individual Muslims vary.
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