For many non - Muslims , the words " Sharia law " conjure painful images of armed Taliban militantsattacking young woman ' schoolsandbeating womenwho were not properly covered up ; or young men and women in Iran being convict of adultery and sentenced todeath by stoning .
But harmonize to bookman of Islamic law , the whole idea of a state or government acting as Muslim morality police is alien toIslam . They say that the " Sharia constabulary " impose by rural area like Iran , Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under theTalibanis in the main a political arm and not a reflexion of the true meaning of Sharia .
Sharia Explained
In Arabic , Sharia intend " the manner , " saysAsifa Quraishi - Landes , a law prof at the University of Wisconsin - Madison Law School , " or fundamentally , the way to live a good life . "
Sharia , to Muslims , is a usher for how God ( Allah ) want them to live . It tells them how to treat others pityingly , how to take care of their dead body , how to conduct line fair and how to care for the poor and marginalise . In that sensory faculty , Sharia is not unlike the Ten Commandments , the kosher dietetic laws or the biblical monition to " love thy neighbor as thyself . "
" For millions of devout Muslims around the earthly concern and in the United States , Sharia govern everything from the way we corrode to how we protect the environment , " saysAbed Awad , an American lawyer specializing inSharia - compliant estate planningand kinsfolk jurisprudence and an adjunct law professor at Rutgers Law School , Newark . " Sharia guides us to be righteous humans , good neighbors , loyal spouses , loving parents , to care for the elderly , to be honest and fairish in commercial transactions , and to make Polymonium caeruleum van-bruntiae a agency of life . "
There are currently15 countriesthat apply Sharia in part or amply . These include Afghanistan , Egypt , Nigeria , the Maldives and Saudi Arabia . The most populous nation using Sharia is Indonesia , though only one province in the rural area practice Sharia , in addition to secular police force . Each land has its own practices as to what is allowed and what is veto under Sharia . Throughout the centuries - long account of Islam , there was n’t a exclusive way come by all Muslims and therefore no individual " Sharia jurisprudence . " Since Sharia ( sometimes write as " Shariah " ) is defined as " Muslim practice of law , " it is redundant to say " Sharia law . "
Beginning with revelation incur by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century C.E. and recorded in the Quran , Moslem scholars and jurists have turn over the correct interpretation of the Quran as well as the teachings of Muhammad ( called the Hadith ) . The result were different school of Muslim legal thought , each with its own readiness of laws known asfiqhor " understanding . "
" The way that Islamic law evolved was that there were multiple schools that individual Muslims would choose from , " says Quraishi - Landes . " That ’s why you ’ll still determine hatful of dissimilar way that Muslims are in the world . Historically , Muslims had a pretty good cartroad record of unity without uniformness . "
Does Islam Mandate a Theocracy?
While the legal construct of " breakup of church building and province " is evenhandedly novel to the West , a standardized type of separation was practiced in the Muslim world for centuries .
The leaders of the various Islamic legal schools successfully fought to keep Riley B King and rulers out of spiritual matters , say Quraishi - Landes . What developed were two separate hardening of laws . Moral and personal matter fall under fiqh , and those laws were draw up by each legal school . Matters of the state — the equivalent of today ’s zoning laws and administrative rule — pass under a second family of laws calledsiyasa .
" Instead of a separation of church and state of matter , the Moslem world had a separation of fiqh and siyasa , " she tell . " Historically , Muslims did n’t have the same theocracy problems that Europe had , because Muslims did n’t combine everything into a centralised government the way Europeans did . "
If the moral computer code of Islam was never meant to be enforced by the land , then how do you explain the Taliban or Saudi Arabia ? The solution , interestingly enough , is colonialism , Quraishi - Landes says .
In the eighteenth and 19th hundred , commonwealth like England and France , as well as corporate entity like the English East India Company , colonized Muslim - legal age territorial dominion in North Africa , the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent . Thecolonizers installed European - panache governments and legal systemsbased on the idea of a unite , centralized assurance .
Under this new compound organization , the traditional Muslim effectual schools were sidelined and rob of authority , and the siyasa or civil codes were interchange by British common law or the French Napoleonic Code , grant to Quraishi - Landes . Now the entire legal system and government operations were all under one colonial roof .
And that ’s how it remained for more than 100 years until those Muslim bulk body politic began to recover independence in the twentieth century . As they egress from their colonial yokes , warring political movement argued over how the new state should operate .
" Some of the loudest interpreter in these Moslem - majority lands sound out , ' The coloniser train Islam away from us . They hire our Sharia by from us , ' which in many way of life they did , " says Quraishi - Landes . " But instead of rethinking the organization , the new sovereign governments just poured the fiqh rules — the Islamic moral codes — into the centralised government modeling that the coloniser had create . "
And that , in a nutshell , is how we ended up with Moslem rural area in which the government legislate and prosecutes moral behavior under the guise of Sharia .
" The state is now deciding what istheIslamic law , including rules about how to dress , how to get married , etc . , " say Quraishi - Landes . " That ’s only possible after this post - compound transformation . When you see something being called Islamic administration today , it ’s really European government dressed up in Muslim wear . "
Varying Interpretations of Sharia
harmonise to the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , the Saudi legal and jurist system is based on Sharia . " Sharia refers to the soundbox of Islamic law . It serves as a guideline for all legal affair in Saudi Arabia , " explain the embassy website . " In the Sharia , and therefore in Saudi Arabia , there is no difference between the sacred and the profane aspects of bon ton . "
The problem with this explanation , according to Muslim legal scholars like Quraishi - Landes and Awad , is that outside of a smattering of country that call themselves " Muslim states " — Iran , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , Malaysia and others — there is no single interpretation of the fiqh practice of law live with by all Muslims . And there ’s no ecclesiastic or administration eubstance tasked with penalise people for breaking those law .
" Saudi Arabia and the Taliban are telling the people , ' We ’re doing Sharia for you , ' but they ’re lie , " says Quraishi - Landes . " What they ’re not saying is that they ’re pick and choosing from among many equally valid fiqh rules . And they ’re using the power of the land to force it on the people . "
The truth , says Awad , is that what these groups call " Sharia " is nothing more than a political tool for authoritarian regime to delay in great power . And that corruption of true Sharia , " this advanced moral tradition , " say Awad , has conduct to its demonization in the West , including campaign by U.S. pol toban the exercise of Shariain American courts .
" When you get a group like the Taliban that claims to enforce Sharia and then choose the most restrictive of all of those rule , that ’s when you get the headlines in the newsworthiness : ' All Sharia is all bad all the sentence , ' " says Quraishi - Landes .
For Most Muslims, Sharia Is a Personal Moral Guide
Awad explains that 95 percent of the earth ’s Muslims subsist outside of these few hard-line regimes claim to legislate and enforce Sharia . For that immense majority of Muslims , there is no primal religious potency that polices their conduct and levy punishments for violating moral codes . There are n’t even ordained clergy in Islam . Allah is the only evaluator , and He ’s " most forgiving , " he says .
" Islam take the position that you’re able to be on the wrong path for decades , but there ’s always the potential for you to rue and ask for God ’s forgiveness , " says Awad .
As for how most Muslims make up one’s mind how to dress and what to eat on , they look to the Quran , Hadith and other sources for guidance , but it ’s ultimately a matter of personal selection . The Qurandoes saythat believing Muslim women " should withdraw close to them portions of their loose outer covering , " but itdoesn’t sayexactly what principal or body covering should be outwear . Nor does it urge any punishments for charwoman who do not wear a veil . That ’s why you see so much variety in how Muslim woman opt to exhibit themselves .
How the Taliban will govern Afghanistan according to Sharia , as they have wassail to do , is unclear . The senior commandant of the Taliban enjoin that a group of Muslim scholars will influence the legal system and the government will be guided by Muslim jurisprudence . " There will be no popular arrangement at all because it does not have any base in our country . We will not discourse what eccentric of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is cleared . It is Sharia jurisprudence and that is it , " he told Reuters , as report by Al - Jazeera .
As to what that means in practice — whether a return to very stern law on dress codes and the banning of women from teaching and most work — remains to be seen .
