Sharia
Sharia (/ʃəˈriːə/; Arabic: شَرِيعَة, romanized: sharīʿah, 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]
"Islamic law" redirects here. For other uses, see Islamic law (disambiguation).
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]
Etymology and usage[edit]
Contemporary usage[edit]
The word sharīʿah is used by Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East to designate a prophetic religion in its totality.[31] For example, sharīʿat Mūsā means law or religion of Moses and sharīʿatu-nā can mean "our religion" in reference to any monotheistic faith.[31] Within Islamic discourse, šarīʿah refers to religious regulations governing the lives of Muslims.[31] For many Muslims, the word means simply "justice," and they will consider any law that promotes justice and social welfare to conform to Sharia.[5] Sharia is the first of Four Doors and the lowest level on the path to God in Sufism and in branches of Islam that are influenced by Sufism, such as Ismailism and Alawites. It is necessary to reach from Sharia to Tariqa, from there to Ma'rifa and finally to haqiqa. In each of these gates, there are 10 levels that the dervish must pass through.[32]
Jan Michiel Otto summarizes the evolutionary stages of understanding by distinguishing four meanings conveyed by the term sharia in discourses.[33]
Modern legal reforms[edit]
Under colonial rule[edit]
Starting from the 17th century, European powers began to extend political influence over lands ruled by Muslim dynasties, and by the end of the 19th century, much of the Muslim world came under colonial domination. The first areas of Islamic law to be impacted were usually commercial and criminal laws, which impeded colonial administration and were soon replaced by European regulations.[155] Islamic commercial laws were also replaced by European (mostly French) laws in Muslim states which retained formal independence, because these states increasingly came to rely on Western capital and could not afford to lose the business of foreign merchants who refused to submit to Islamic regulations.[5]
Support and opposition[edit]
Support[edit]
A 2013 survey based on interviews of 38,000 Muslims, randomly selected from urban and rural parts in 39 countries using area probability designs, by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that a majority—in some cases "overwhelming" majority—of Muslims in a number of countries support making "Sharia" or "Islamic law" the law of the land, including Afghanistan (99%), Iraq (91%), Niger (86%), Malaysia (86%), Pakistan (84%), Morocco (83%), Bangladesh (82%), Egypt (74%), Indonesia (72%), Jordan (71%), Uganda (66%), Ethiopia (65%), Mali (63%), Ghana (58%), and Tunisia (56%).[232] In Muslim regions of Southern-Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the support is less than 50%: Russia (42%), Kyrgyzstan (35%), Tajikistan (27%), Kosovo (20%), Albania (12%), Turkey (12%), Kazakhstan (10%), Azerbaijan (8%). Regional averages of support were 84% in South Asia, 77% in Southeast Asia, 74% in the Middle-East/North Africa, 64%, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 18% in Southern-Eastern Europe, and 12% in Central Asia .[232]
However, while most of those who support implementation of Sharia favor using it in family and property disputes, fewer supported application of severe punishments such as whippings and cutting off hands, and interpretations of some aspects differed widely.[232] According to the Pew poll, among Muslims who support making Sharia the law of the land, most do not believe that it should be applied to non-Muslims. In the Muslim-majority countries surveyed this proportion varied between 74% (of 74% in Egypt) and 19% (of 10% in Kazakhstan), as percentage of those who favored making Sharia the law of the land.[233]
In all of the countries surveyed, respondents were more likely to define Sharia as "the revealed word of God" rather than as "a body of law developed by men based on the word of God".[234] In analyzing the poll, Amaney Jamal has argued that there is no single, shared understanding of the notions "Sharia" and "Islamic law" among the respondents. In particular, in countries where Muslim citizens have little experience with rigid application of Sharia-based state laws, these notions tend to be more associated with Islamic ideals like equality and social justice than with prohibitions.[235] Other polls have indicated that for Egyptians, the word "Sharia" is associated with notions of political, social and gender justice.[236]
In 2008, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has suggested that Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts should be integrated into the British legal system alongside ecclesiastical courts to handle marriage and divorce, subject to agreement of all parties and strict requirements for protection of equal rights for women.[237] His reference to the sharia sparked a controversy.[237] Later that year, Nicholas Phillips, then Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, stated that there was "no reason why sharia principles [...] should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution."[238] A 2008 YouGov poll in the United Kingdom found 40% of Muslim students interviewed supported the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims.[239] Michael Broyde, professor of law at Emory University specializing in alternative dispute resolution and Jewish law,[240] has argued that sharia courts can be integrated into the American religious arbitration system, provided that they adopt appropriate institutional requirements as American rabbinical courts have done.[241]