Sharia

Sharia (/ʃəˈrə/; Arabic: شَرِيعَة, romanizedsharīʿah, IPA: [ʃaˈriːʕa]) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition[1][2][3] based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and hadith.[1] In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and this referencing is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its interpretations by Islamic scholars.[4][5][6] Fiqh, practical application side of sharia in a sense, was elaborated over the centuries by legal opinions issued by qualified jurists and sharia has never been the sole valid legal system in Islam historically; it has always been used alongside customary law from the beginning,[7][8] and applied in courts by ruler-appointed judges,[4][6] integrated with various economic, criminal and administrative laws issued by Muslim rulers.[9]

Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence recognizes four sources of Sharia: the Quran, sunnah (a type of oral tradition narrated through a chain of transmission and recorded and classified as authentic hadith), ijma (may be understood as ijma al-ummah – a whole community consensus, or ijma al-aimmah – a consensus by religious authorities.[10]) and analogical reasoning.[note 1][13] Four legal schools of Sunni Islam, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafiʽi & Hanbali, developed Sunni methodologies for deriving rulings from scriptural sources using a process known as ijtihad.[4][5] Traditional jurisprudence distinguishes two principal branches of law, rituals and social dealings; subsections family law, relationships (commercial, political / administrative) and criminal law, in a wide range of topics.[4][6] Its rulings are concerned with ethical standards as much as legal norms,[14][15] assigning actions to one of five categories: mandatory, recommended, neutral, abhorred, and prohibited.[4][5][6]

Over time, on the basis of mentioned studies legal schools have emerged, reflecting the preferences of particular societies and governments, as well as Islamic scholars or imams on theoretical and practical applications of laws and regulations. Although sharia is presented as a form of governance[16] in addition to its other aspects, especially by the contemporary Islamist understanding, some researchers see the early history of Islam, which was also modelled and exalted by most Muslims; not a period when sharia was dominant, but a kind of "secular Arabic expansion".[17][18]

According to human rights groups, some of the classical sharia practices involve serious violations of basic human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression, and the practices of countries governed by sharia are criticized.[19] The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR) ruled in several cases that Sharia is "incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy".[20][21] Against this, "the concept of human rights" have been categorically excluded by the governments of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia by claiming that it belongs to secular and western values,[22] and the Cairo conference by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation declares that human rights can only be respected if they are compatible with Islam.[23]

Approaches to sharia in the 21st century vary widely, and the role and mutability of sharia[24] in a changing world has become an increasingly debated topic around the world.[5] Beyond sectarian differences, fundamentalists advocate the complete and uncompromising implementation of "exact/pure sharia" without modifications,[2][25] while modernists argue that it can/should be brought into line with human rights and other contemporary issues such as democracy, minority rights, freedom of thought, women's rights and banking by new jurisprudences.[26][27][28] In Muslim majority countries, traditional laws have been widely used with[5][29] or changed by European models. Judicial procedures and legal education have been brought in line with European practice likewise.[5] While the constitutions of most Muslim-majority states contain references to Sharia, its rules are largely retained only in family law.[5] The Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought calls by Islamic movements for full implementation of Sharia, including hudud corporal punishments, such as stoning.[5][30]

  1. ^ a b Bassiouni, M. Cherif (2014) [2013]. "The Sharīa, Sunni Islamic Law (Fiqh), and Legal Methods (Ilm Uṣūl al-Fiqh)". In Bassiouni, M. Cherif (ed.). The Shari'a and Islamic Criminal Justice in Time of War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 18–87. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139629249.003. ISBN 9781139629249. LCCN 2013019592. Archived from the original on 17 October 2021. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  2. ^ a b "British & World English: sharia". Oxford: Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  3. ^ Dahlén 2003, chpt. 2a.
  4. ^ a b c d e John L. Esposito, ed. (2014). "Islamic Law". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Vikør 2014.
  6. ^ a b c d Calder 2009.
  7. ^ "Customary law has also been an important part of Islamic law. It was used to resolve disputes that were not covered by sharia, and it also helped to adapt sharia to the needs of different societies and cultures." Islamic Law: An Introduction by John Esposito (2019) Esposito, John. Islamic Law: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2019. Page 31
  8. ^ "Another key principle that the early Islamic jurists developed was the concept of urf, or customary law. Urf is the customary practices of a particular community. The early jurists recognized that urf could be used to supplement or complement Islamic law. For example, if there was no clear ruling on a particular issue in the Quran or hadith, the jurists could look to urf for guidance." The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law; Emon, Anver M., and Rumee Ahmed, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law. Oxford University Press, 2018. p. 25.
  9. ^ Stewart 2013, p. 500.
  10. ^ Corinna Standke (30 August 2008). Sharia - The Islamic Law. GRIN Verlag. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-3-640-14967-4. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
  11. ^ Dahlén 2003, chpt. 4c.
  12. ^ Schneider 2014.
  13. ^ John L. Esposito, Natana J. DeLong-Bas (2001), Women in Muslim family law Archived 19 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, p. 2. Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0815629085. Quote: "[...], by the ninth century, the classical theory of law fixed the sources of Islamic law at four: the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet, qiyas (analogical reasoning), and ijma (consensus)."
  14. ^ Coulson & El Shamsy 2019.
  15. ^ Hallaq 2010, p. 145.
  16. ^ "The System of Rule in Islam". 20 June 2010.
  17. ^ Robert G. Hoyland: In God's Path. The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (2015)
  18. ^ Patricia Crone / Martin Hinds: God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (1986)
  19. ^ Gontowska, Luiza Maria, "Human Rights Violations Under the Sharia'a : A Comparative Study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran" (2005). Honors College Theses. Paper 13.
  20. ^ See Refah Partİsİ (The Welfare Party) And Others V. Turkey (Applications nos. 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98 and 41344/98), Judgment, Strasbourg, 13 February 2003, No. 123 (siehe S. 39): "sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy, since principles such as pluralism in the political sphere and the constant evolution of public freedoms have no place in it and a regime based on sharia clearly diverges from Convention values"; see Alastair Mowbray, Cases, Materials, and Commentary on the European Convention on Human Rights, OUP Oxford, 2012, p 744, Google-Books preview.
  21. ^ Janisch, Wolfgang (14 September 2017). "EuGH - Gegen Scheidungen nach Scharia-Recht". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  22. ^ Gontowska, Luiza Maria, "Human Rights Violations Under the Sharia'a : A Comparative Study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran" (2005). Honors College Theses. Paper 13.
  23. ^ https://rwi.lu.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020-OIC-Declaration-of-Human-Rights.pdf
  24. ^ https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/1699430
  25. ^ Amanat 2009: "Muslim fundamentalists [...] claim that Shari’a and its sources [...] constitute a divine law that regulates all aspects of Muslim life, as well as Muslim societies and Muslim states [...]. Muslim modernists, [...] on the other hand, criticize the old approaches to Shari’a by traditional Muslim jurists as obsolete and instead advocate innovative approaches to Shari’a that accommodate more pluralist and relativist views within a democratic framework."
  26. ^ An-Na'im, Abdullahi A (1996). "Islamic Foundations of Religious Human Rights". In Witte, John; van der Vyver, Johan D. (eds.). Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives. pp. 337–59. ISBN 978-9041101792.
  27. ^ Hajjar, Lisa (2004). "Religion, State Power, and Domestic Violence in Muslim Societies: A Framework for Comparative Analysis". Law & Social Inquiry. 29 (1): 1–38. doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.2004.tb00329.x. JSTOR 4092696. S2CID 145681085.
  28. ^ Al-Suwaidi, J. (1995). Arab and western conceptions of democracy; in Democracy, war, and peace in the Middle East (Editors: David Garnham, Mark A. Tessler), Indiana University Press, see Chapters 5 and 6; ISBN 978-0253209399[page needed]
  29. ^ Otto 2008, p. 19.
  30. ^ Mayer 2009.


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