Shariah and Fiqh – How Islam is not opposed to modernity

on Sunday, March 10, 2013

Most people in the developed world would have heard the word Shariah. They associate the word with a legal system that permits age-old punishments that are, in the modern world, considered a violation of basic human rights. These include the chopping of hands if a person is found to have stolen something, or stoning to death if the person has committed adultery. Although most people are familiar with Shariah and what it orders, they have never even heard the word fiqh. Knowing about Shariah and not understanding Fiqh is like knowing geography without ever having seen a map of the world. Your knowledge about the Islamic legal system is limited to one very small part of it, and this constricted understanding is nothing short of dangerous.

Shariah, according to Islam, consists of all the laws dictated in the Qur’an, all the laws revealed to Prophet Muhammad, and all laws that are taken from the life of Prophet Muhammad. Shariah either has divine origin or divine inspiration behind it, and it is something that is stagnant today. Shariah does not and cannot change in anyway, and so critics are right to call it an inflexible legal tradition. Despite the inflexible nature of Shariah, Islamic law is anything but stagnant. The concept of Fiqh ensures that all laws are up to date with the times, and that people have easy access to justice.

Fiqh, literally translated, means “true understanding.” Fiqh in Islam means the deduction of rules based on evidence obtained in the Qur’an and the traditions of Prophet Muhammad, as well as on the consensus of Islamic scholars. It is important to understand that Fiqh, in no way, overrides the Shariah. If the Shariah speaks on a specific matter, Fiqh cannot overrule it. Fiqh is a part of Islamic law that evolves and ensures that it can keep up with the times. Unlike Shariah, which covers broad holistic principles, Fiqh covers specific day-to-day issues. The Qur’an only lists down the following crimes, all other Islamic crimes and punishments have been derived by community consensus:

As a result, those whose understanding of Islamic law is based on just Shariah justifiably think that it is not applicable to the modern age.  The Qur’an, and hence Shariah, was revealed to a tribal society more than a thousand years ago. There is no question that if the entire Islamic system was based on just this written code, society would not have evolved from what it was when the Qur’an was revealed. Islam, however, does contain provisions such as Fiqh to ensure that the law keeps up with modern times. Fiqh takes various Qur’anic principles and applies them to the modern day and age.

 



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