For Muslims, shari'a symbolizes hope and the expectation of a better life. Shari'a is considered god's blessing to humanity. For Christians, shari'a relates to persecution and evokes images of decapitation of hostages by terrorist groups in Lebanon and Iraq. It ties to the Taliban's efforts to install an Islamic government in Afghanistan. In this article we will try to explain shari'a as ideal and shari'a as classical law.

1. Shari'a as ideal: The concept of shari'a was developed by Islamic scholars after the death of Muhammad in 632 AD. It is based on Qur'anic notions and on how Muhammad practiced these and expanded in the Muslim community to what shari'a in all its variations means today.

Shari'a is derived from the Arabic verb shara'a which means to 'to stretch/be stretched.' The root meaning of shari'a therefore is: way, path, road, and highway. Its primary use was to designate the camels path to the well, the path to life. It is from here that the specifically religious use emerged as the rule of law, the system of laws or even the totality of the prophet's message. This message guided the community of believers on the divine path towards the good life. And so shari'a became the way of blessing for the present life and the life to come: the way of those on whom god has bestowed his grace (Qur'an 1:7). In short, shari'a for Muslims stands for life as it is meant to be, a description of the prerogatives for true life. It therefore deals with various issues. For instance it tells people how to pray, but also how to engage in war.

Shari'a is the just islamic order that presents an alternative for the chaos Muslims live in. They cannot discover this divine pattern of life in their present society, which is dominated by economic crisis, unemployment, corrupt government and abuse of power.

To all Muslims, shari'a is an ideal, an objective to attain, but the Qur'an does not give a detailed blueprint of it. Only a limited number of verses deal with 'moral law.' Muslims therefore believe the shari'a is hidden in the Qur'an and has to be 'found' by men! The first man who evidently was able to find shari'a was Muhammad.

2. Shari'a as classical law: After Muhammad's death and the rapid expansion of Islam on the Arabian Peninsula, Muslims continued to desire to be guided on the true path of god. The first four successors of Muhammad were called the rightly-guided caliphs. They succeeded Muhammad as spiritual and political leaders of the chosen people of god. But as the revelations had stopped and the moral character of the caliphs matched that of the prophet less and less, their spiritual authority dwindled.

Fortunately there were others: pious men that studied the scriptures and could be consulted in religious matters. These men were scholars of the law and had knowledge of the revelation, the word of god and the example of the prophet on how to apply it to daily life.

To establish shari'a as the divine guidance for everyday life, these scholars of the law developed a common approach showing it was derived from its sources through a systematic act of interpretation. These sources were: 1) Divine revelation (Qur'an), 2) Prophetic example (Sunnah), 3) Reason by analogy (Qijas), and 4) General consensus (Ijma) of the community of believers (Umma). And so the Umma became the third vessel of revelation in Islam. The Qur'an was the direct word of god, the Sunnah of the prophet was inspired by god and general consensus of the Umma - in reality the scholars of the law - had binding authority in all areas of life.

How did these scholars of the law go about their interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunnah? They systematically applied the rules of language, rhetoric and analogy and finally expressed their opinion in an open ended and exploratory pattern of discourse. This opinion was subsequently presented to other scholars of the law in order to be discussed, modified and eventually accepted. In this way they discovered a rule that applied to a particular situation in life.

In the shari'a law, there are five categories of human actions, ranging from prescribed to forbidden:

1. Obligation: abstention is punishable. E.g. keeping the five Pillars of Islam
2. Commendable. E.g. saying one's prayers at night.
3. Indifferent. E.g. the color of one's clothes.
4. Reprehensible. E.g. having a divorce.
5. Forbidden. E.g. eating pork or drinking alcohol.

After the 3rd century of Islam (10th century AD) the so-called 'gate' of opinion, the possibility of new development in shari'a was closed. The scholars of the law in the following centuries were restricted to commenting on the work of their predecessors. Hence every new interpretation of the scripture or new opinion in matters of shari'a that questioned former decisions was considered to be heresy.

In the Islamic empires, the class of scholars of the law was incorporated into the administrative structure of the state as judges to act in court and as juridical advisors to express their juridical opinion about a specific case. This opinion was called fatwa.

Shari'a, the divine path of Islam, became a spiritual home for Muslim society after its development over the centuries. This House of Islam (Dar-al -Islam) was distinct from other religious societies in the world. However, because of the principle of submission to the hermeneutic tradition of preceding scholars of the law, this House of Islam had a certain inertia, an inflexibility that made it incapable of adaptation to the demands of the modern world when Muslim societies dramatically changed in the 20th and 21st centuries under the influence of post-colonization and globalization. This was a severe problem.

Shari'a is at the heart of the Muslim World because it constitutes the very ideal of a just Islamic society in which society is instituted according to god's will.

(This article was produced by the Open Doors International Study Centre and used with permission.)