Shari'a (Islamic Law)

Sources of Shari'a

The Qur'ān, which Muslims hold to be the Word of God, is the first and most important source of Shari'a. It has always been the central legal source for Muslims, although it was not in the form of a legal code. While the Qur'ān was being revealed through the prophet Muhammad over a 22-year period (610–632 CE), it served as an ongoing source of instruction for the emerging Muslim community. Muslims have always seen a close connection between Islamic law and the Qur'ān because of the Qur'ān's concern to provide rules and regulations to govern the Muslim community.

The second source of Shari'a is the Sunna, the normative behavior of the prophet Muhammad. In pre-Islamic times in Arabian societies, the concept of following a sunna, or the ways of certain well-respected people, was common, and it was seen by these societies as a way to provide standards for later generations. As such, the prophet Muhammad's Sunna could not have been ignored by his immediate followers.

Since the early days of the first Muslim community, Muslims have been concerned with identifying the prophet's Sunna from the general practices of the community. The Sunna was established by systematically collecting hadith (anecdotes or reports about the prophet's sayings and practices). Whereas Muslims focused on committing the Qur'ān to writing almost immediately after the death of the prophet in 632, they did not pay sufficient attention to documenting the hadith until several decades later. This led to the fabrication of many hadith and debates on how one should ascertain whether a hadith was or was not authentic and reliable. In time, some hadith collections such as that of Bukhari and Muslim came to be regarded as the most reliable hadith collections for Sunni Muslims while Shi'a Muslims established their own authentic collections.

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