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Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, everyday etiquette and fasting. Though interpretations of sharia vary between cultures, in its strictest and most historically coherent definition it is considered the infallible law of God—as opposed to the human interpretation of the laws (fiqh). Historically however, much of Sharia has been implemented in its strictest understanding.
There are two primary sources of sharia law: the precepts set forth in the Quranic verses (ayahs), and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah.[6] Where it has official status, sharia is interpreted by Islamic judges (qadis) with varying responsibilities for the religious leaders (imams). For questions not directly addressed in the primary sources, the application of sharia is extended through consensus of the religious scholars (ulama) thought to embody the consensus of the Muslim Community (ijma). Islamic jurisprudence will also sometimes incorporate analogies from the Quran and Sunnah through qiyas, though many scholars also prefer reasoning ('aql) to analogy.
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The origin of sharia is the Qu'ran, and traditions gathered from the life of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (born ca. 570 CE in Mecca).[43]
Sharia underwent fundamental development, beginning with the reigns of caliphs Abu Bakr (632–34) and Umar (634–44), during which time many questions were brought to the attention of Muhammad's closest comrades for consultation.[44] During the reign of Muawiya b. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, ca. 662 CE, Islam undertook an urban transformation, raising questions not originally covered by Islamic law.[44] Since then, changes in Islamic society have played an ongoing role in developing sharia, which branches out into fiqh and Qanun respectively.
The formative period of fiqh stretches back to the time of the early Muslim communities. In this period, jurists were more concerned with pragmatic issues of authority and teaching than with theory.[45] Progress in theory happened with the coming of the early Muslim jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i (767–820), who laid down the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence in his book Al-Risala. The book details the four roots of law (Quran, Sunnah, ijma, and qiyas) while specifying that the primary Islamic texts (the Quran and the hadith) be understood according to objective rules of interpretation derived from careful study of the Arabic language.[46]
A number of important legal concepts and institutions were developed by Islamic jurists during the classical period of Islam, known as the Islamic Golden Age, dated from the 7th to 13th centuries.[47][48][49][50]
Among some Muslims, tribal laws were adapted to conform to sharia "for they could not form part of the tribal law unless and until they were generally accepted as such."[51] Additionally, Noel James Coulson, Lecturer in Islamic law of the University of London, states that "to the tribe as a whole belonged the power to determine the standards by which its members should live. But here the tribe is conceived not merely as the group of its present representatives but as a historical entity embracing past, present, and future generations."[51] So, while "each and every law must be rooted in either the Quran or the Sunnah,"[52] without contradiction, tribal life brought about a sense of participation. Such participation was further reinforced by Muhammad who stated, "My community will never agree in error".[52]
The Umayyads initiated the office of appointing qadis, or Islamic judges. The jurisdiction of the qadi extended only to Muslims, while non-Muslim populations retained their own legal institutions.[53] The qadis were usually pious specialists in Islam. As these grew in number, they began to theorize and systemize Islamic jurisprudence.[54] The Abbasid made the institution of qadi independent from the government, but this separation wasn't always respected.[55]
Both the Umayyad caliph Umar II and the Abbasids had agreed that the caliph could not legislate contrary to the Quran or the sunnah. Imam Shafi'i declared: "a tradition from the Prophet must be accepted as soon as it become known...If there has been an action on the part of a caliph, and a tradition from the Prophet to the contrary becomes known later, that action must be discarded in favor of the tradition from the Prophet." Thus, under the Abbasids the main features of sharia were definitively established and sharia was recognized as the law of behavior for Muslims.[56]
During the 19th century, the history of Islamic law took a sharp turn due to new challenges the Muslim world faced: the West had risen to a global power and colonized a large part of the world, including Muslim territories. In the Western world, societies changed from the agricultural to the industrial stage, new social and political ideas emerged, and social models slowly shifted from hierarchical towards egalitarian. The Ottoman Empire and the rest of the Muslim world were in decline, and calls for reform became louder.
In Muslim countries, codified state law started replacing the role of scholarly legal opinion. Western countries sometimes inspired, sometimes pressured, and sometimes forced Muslim states to change their laws. Secularist movements pushed for laws deviating from the opinions of the Islamic legal scholars. Islamic legal scholarship remained the sole authority for guidance in matters of rituals, worship, and spirituality, while they lost authority to the state in other areas.[citation needed]
The Muslim community became divided into groups reacting differently to the change: secularists believe that the law of the state should be based on secular principles, not on Islamic legal doctrines; traditionalists believe that the law of the state should be based on the traditional legal schools;[57] reformers believe that new Islamic legal theories can produce modernized Islamic law[58] and lead to acceptable opinions in areas such as women's rights.[59] This division persists until the present day (Brown 1996, Hallaq 2001, Ramadan 2005, Aslan 2006, Safi 2003, Nenezich 2006).
There has been a growing religious revival in Islam, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing today. This movement has expressed itself in various forms ranging from wars to efforts towards improving education.[60]
Sharia - Ask.com Encyclopedia
Qanun
Laws and regulations enacted by a government. Qanun were meant to be supplements to Islamic law in matters it left insufficiently regulated. Under the Ottoman sultans, qanun became an integral part of the legal system, especially in the administrative, fiscal, and penal domains. The sultan's prerogative to enforce customary practices deemed publicly beneficial was a main justification of qanun. In the modern era, qanun gradually became a generic name for all laws and regulations. Similar developments took place in other Muslim countries under such different names as dustur and nizam.
QANUN
Qanun (pl. qawanin) is a word that apparently entered into Arabic from Greek, although according to some reports it might have been borrowed from Persian or Latin or have meant the "way to something" or its measurement in old Arabic. The word, however, has come to have broad meanings including a particular musical instrument, known simply as al-qanun, tax assessments, state taxes and tariffs, registers and lists, land measurements, and also rules and regulations. In modern times, qanun generally refers to state law, although the word is often used to signify guiding rules, customs, and principles. In both premodern and modern times, qanun often referred to secular laws and administrative rules, as opposed to religious laws or shari˓a. The word was often used in the titles of books written as early as the tenth century. The titles of some of these books included: al-Qawanin al-shar˓iyya (The principles of shari˓a), Qawanin al-ahkam al-shar'iyya (The principles of Islamic law), Tashrih al-qanun (The explanation of the law), Qawanin al-siyasa (The rules of governance), Qanun al-sa˓ada (Rules of conduct and principles of happiness), Qanun al-adab (Rules of good character), Qanun al-balagha (Rules of eloquence), Qanun fi al-tibb (Avicenna's book on medicine), and Qawanin al-riyada (Principles of mathematics). …
Qanun - Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World | Encyclopedia.com
There are two primary sources of sharia law: the precepts set forth in the Quranic verses (ayahs), and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah.[6] Where it has official status, sharia is interpreted by Islamic judges (qadis) with varying responsibilities for the religious leaders (imams). For questions not directly addressed in the primary sources, the application of sharia is extended through consensus of the religious scholars (ulama) thought to embody the consensus of the Muslim Community (ijma). Islamic jurisprudence will also sometimes incorporate analogies from the Quran and Sunnah through qiyas, though many scholars also prefer reasoning ('aql) to analogy.
...
The origin of sharia is the Qu'ran, and traditions gathered from the life of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (born ca. 570 CE in Mecca).[43]
Sharia underwent fundamental development, beginning with the reigns of caliphs Abu Bakr (632–34) and Umar (634–44), during which time many questions were brought to the attention of Muhammad's closest comrades for consultation.[44] During the reign of Muawiya b. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, ca. 662 CE, Islam undertook an urban transformation, raising questions not originally covered by Islamic law.[44] Since then, changes in Islamic society have played an ongoing role in developing sharia, which branches out into fiqh and Qanun respectively.
The formative period of fiqh stretches back to the time of the early Muslim communities. In this period, jurists were more concerned with pragmatic issues of authority and teaching than with theory.[45] Progress in theory happened with the coming of the early Muslim jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i (767–820), who laid down the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence in his book Al-Risala. The book details the four roots of law (Quran, Sunnah, ijma, and qiyas) while specifying that the primary Islamic texts (the Quran and the hadith) be understood according to objective rules of interpretation derived from careful study of the Arabic language.[46]
A number of important legal concepts and institutions were developed by Islamic jurists during the classical period of Islam, known as the Islamic Golden Age, dated from the 7th to 13th centuries.[47][48][49][50]
Among some Muslims, tribal laws were adapted to conform to sharia "for they could not form part of the tribal law unless and until they were generally accepted as such."[51] Additionally, Noel James Coulson, Lecturer in Islamic law of the University of London, states that "to the tribe as a whole belonged the power to determine the standards by which its members should live. But here the tribe is conceived not merely as the group of its present representatives but as a historical entity embracing past, present, and future generations."[51] So, while "each and every law must be rooted in either the Quran or the Sunnah,"[52] without contradiction, tribal life brought about a sense of participation. Such participation was further reinforced by Muhammad who stated, "My community will never agree in error".[52]
The Umayyads initiated the office of appointing qadis, or Islamic judges. The jurisdiction of the qadi extended only to Muslims, while non-Muslim populations retained their own legal institutions.[53] The qadis were usually pious specialists in Islam. As these grew in number, they began to theorize and systemize Islamic jurisprudence.[54] The Abbasid made the institution of qadi independent from the government, but this separation wasn't always respected.[55]
Both the Umayyad caliph Umar II and the Abbasids had agreed that the caliph could not legislate contrary to the Quran or the sunnah. Imam Shafi'i declared: "a tradition from the Prophet must be accepted as soon as it become known...If there has been an action on the part of a caliph, and a tradition from the Prophet to the contrary becomes known later, that action must be discarded in favor of the tradition from the Prophet." Thus, under the Abbasids the main features of sharia were definitively established and sharia was recognized as the law of behavior for Muslims.[56]
During the 19th century, the history of Islamic law took a sharp turn due to new challenges the Muslim world faced: the West had risen to a global power and colonized a large part of the world, including Muslim territories. In the Western world, societies changed from the agricultural to the industrial stage, new social and political ideas emerged, and social models slowly shifted from hierarchical towards egalitarian. The Ottoman Empire and the rest of the Muslim world were in decline, and calls for reform became louder.
In Muslim countries, codified state law started replacing the role of scholarly legal opinion. Western countries sometimes inspired, sometimes pressured, and sometimes forced Muslim states to change their laws. Secularist movements pushed for laws deviating from the opinions of the Islamic legal scholars. Islamic legal scholarship remained the sole authority for guidance in matters of rituals, worship, and spirituality, while they lost authority to the state in other areas.[citation needed]
The Muslim community became divided into groups reacting differently to the change: secularists believe that the law of the state should be based on secular principles, not on Islamic legal doctrines; traditionalists believe that the law of the state should be based on the traditional legal schools;[57] reformers believe that new Islamic legal theories can produce modernized Islamic law[58] and lead to acceptable opinions in areas such as women's rights.[59] This division persists until the present day (Brown 1996, Hallaq 2001, Ramadan 2005, Aslan 2006, Safi 2003, Nenezich 2006).
There has been a growing religious revival in Islam, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing today. This movement has expressed itself in various forms ranging from wars to efforts towards improving education.[60]
Sharia - Ask.com Encyclopedia
Qanun
Laws and regulations enacted by a government. Qanun were meant to be supplements to Islamic law in matters it left insufficiently regulated. Under the Ottoman sultans, qanun became an integral part of the legal system, especially in the administrative, fiscal, and penal domains. The sultan's prerogative to enforce customary practices deemed publicly beneficial was a main justification of qanun. In the modern era, qanun gradually became a generic name for all laws and regulations. Similar developments took place in other Muslim countries under such different names as dustur and nizam.
QANUN
Qanun (pl. qawanin) is a word that apparently entered into Arabic from Greek, although according to some reports it might have been borrowed from Persian or Latin or have meant the "way to something" or its measurement in old Arabic. The word, however, has come to have broad meanings including a particular musical instrument, known simply as al-qanun, tax assessments, state taxes and tariffs, registers and lists, land measurements, and also rules and regulations. In modern times, qanun generally refers to state law, although the word is often used to signify guiding rules, customs, and principles. In both premodern and modern times, qanun often referred to secular laws and administrative rules, as opposed to religious laws or shari˓a. The word was often used in the titles of books written as early as the tenth century. The titles of some of these books included: al-Qawanin al-shar˓iyya (The principles of shari˓a), Qawanin al-ahkam al-shar'iyya (The principles of Islamic law), Tashrih al-qanun (The explanation of the law), Qawanin al-siyasa (The rules of governance), Qanun al-sa˓ada (Rules of conduct and principles of happiness), Qanun al-adab (Rules of good character), Qanun al-balagha (Rules of eloquence), Qanun fi al-tibb (Avicenna's book on medicine), and Qawanin al-riyada (Principles of mathematics). …
Qanun - Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World | Encyclopedia.com
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