Written by Balghis Badri.
It is crucial to begin our analysis with a definition of the term Sharia law and its sources and principles. Sharia law is the Muslim jurisprudence from which specific different types of family, penal, civil, labour, economic and monetary law can be derived.
The main two sources of Sharia law are the Qur’an and the Sunna. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the word of God revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. The Qur’an as Islam’s holy book can be split into different parts. The part that contains most of its verses aims at convincing the non-believers, of the time the Qur’an was written in particular, of the concept of believing in the One God and the afterlife with its consequences of punishment in hell or reward in paradise. Many verses deal with how a “good” Muslim should behave by worshipping God, by oneself, and in relation to other people, especially other Muslims.
The Qur’an contains detailed stories about other prophets, the support of believers and the resistance of non-believers. There are verses that order Muslims to abstain from certain behaviour and actions and to practise others, while yet other verses recommend and commend behaviour to be followed.
The Sunna as the other source of Islamic teachings is the words or sayings by the Prophet or his doings, which mainly elaborate on what was revealed in the Qur’an, but also include other issues that need to be discussed according to ambiguous contents or in answer to queries of his followers. Hence, the main characteristic of Islam is that it is a religion that demands active faith of observance and practice. It is human-centred and emphasizes ideal human relations and behaviour. It is embedded in a call for communalism and social justice with degrees of individualism in property holding and in legal and faith responsibilities. It is not characterized by emphasizing dichotomies of duality but rather by triple or quadruple classifications.
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