Islam

Defining Islamic Law

At the most dogmatic or theoretical level, Islamic law is God given in the Qur'an, but “between the original divine proposition and the eventual human disposition is interposed an extensive field of intellectual activity and decision” (Coulson 1969: 2). Qur'anic verses in many cases provided general rules. Sometimes these rules were “absolute” and clear, while the meanings of other rules were complex and hidden, leading to different interpretations. During the years of the Qur'anic revelation, the Prophet Muhammad provided the interpretation. After the completion of the revelation and the Prophet's death, however, the caliphs (as the Prophet's successors) disagreed on the interpretation, and, as a result, Muslim legal theory was required to explain divine revelation. The human interpreters of divine revelation in Islam developed the science of jurisprudence, Ilm al-Fiqh. The Arabic word fiqh is used to denote both the basis of law and the means of understanding the reason or cause of the speaker's words.

In the tenth century CE (fourth century Hijri), the doors of interpretation (ijtihad) closed for Sunni Muslims. The disagreement among jurists led them to agree that “all principles had been completely settled” (Khoja [Page 932][Page 933]1978: 52). At the turn of the twenty-first century, in Sunni Islam there are four schools of jurisprudence (Mathahib) on which the Islamic legal codes are based: Hanafi'i, Shafi'i, Maliki'i, and Hanbali.

In Shi'a Islam, the issue of interpretation of the divine revelation and the sources of the law are different. Whereas Sunnis assign literal and explicit meaning to the text, Shi'as and Sufis look to the internal and hidden symbolism. This difference for Shi'a Muslims lies in the concept of “Imam's judgment.” According to Shi'a Muslims, “The Imam is not there by the suffrage of people, but by divine right. And He is the final interpreter of the Qur'an” (Khoja 1978: 54–58). For the Shi'a, the Prophet's sayings are a source of law. Shi'a, however, accept only hadiths related by the Imams descended from the Prophet, whereas the Sunnis have developed a science (Ilm al-hadith), to ascertain genuine from fabricated hadiths (Khoja 1978: 59).

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