Evaluating Sharia Flashcards
How does Shariah unify the whole of life?
Religious, political and daily life are all covered through the Shariah law. This is the clear path intended by God for a Muslim. The straight path.
What does Shariah ensure?
Ensures submission to Shariah and to God’s will and ensures that Muslims will live a peaceful life.
What is the very basis of Sharia, and why does that make it strong?
The Qur’an, Hadith and Sunnah - the Qur’an is taken seriously as the eternal unchanging word of Allah and that the Hadith are regarded as reliable using the Isnad method of guarantee.
What are the strengths of a traditional interpretation of Shariah?
Means following the way that past scholars - taqlid - have used and implemented the law in the Qur’an and this means there is a link between the past and the present.
What are the strengths of ijtihad?
Means that the law can keep up with new dilemma and be used to interpret the Qur’an through analogies which are applied to modern dilemmas. This means there is room for innovative thinking of fiqh (law)
What is suggested by the revelation of the Qur’an?
Muhammad received the Qur’an piece by piece over a period of 23 years - so this could imply that as new situations arose, he received a revelation to deal with it. Therefore it’s credible to think that Muslims can progress with laws even today just as Prophet Muhammad did using the new form of Ijtihad which he allowed.
What is strong about the Shi’a approach to Shariah?
They use aql - the use of human reason just as they think Ali did - therefore they are still using the past ideas of their imams which links them to their spiritual guides.
What is problematic about relying on the Qur’an?
The Qur’an is the eternal and unchanging word of Allah and therefore it cannot be changed. However, this means that new issues that have arisen today that may have no guidance in the Qur’an and therefore the law has not really developed.
What do some Muslim scholars believe has caused Islam to fail?
Think that the very idea that there can be no difference between Shariah of Muhammad’s time and Shariah of today is what has caused Islam to fail.
What do some traditionalist Muslims think about Sharia, give an example of this?
Shariah is divine and have not changed the thinking of the schools of law to adapt to modern living. In fact countries such as Afghanistan under the Taliban and Saudi Arabia have enforced Sharia with no attempt to modernise it.
What happened to Mahmud Mohammad Taha?
Sudanese legal reformer who was put to death for putting forward the view that Shariah should be modernised.
What do contradictions in the Qur’an show?
God chose to reveal different verses to Muhammad as the cultural situations changed and this thinking has allowed the Ummah to adjust to a new moral ethos. Revelations have changed and the law should change too. This is not recognised by traditionalists according to Aslan and this is a problem.
What is the issue with all the different law schools
There were too many law schools and it became difficult to know what the laws should be. Countries are trying to reinstate Shari’a now as they think that Islamic civilisation is disappearing. This has meant though trying to remove the differences between the different law schools which is not an easy task.
What is the impact of the legal judgements of the law schools becoming institutionalised?
Meant that what was decided by one generation of scholars was then established for the generations that followed. This meant in turn that Muslims became less concerned with developing innovative solutions to contemporary legal problems and more occupied with Taqlid.
What is the problem with Ijtihad?
Meant that Muslim scholars had to use their own independent judgement but this was criticised because it meant that there was an over confidence in the role of human reason.
