what is shariah

The law plays a central role in Islam and yet, the law is also the least understood aspect of the Islamic faith by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Some even go as far as thinking that a Muslim who believes in Sharia law is by definition a fanatic or fundamentalist. Yet to accuse every Muslim who believes in Islamic law of fanaticism is akin to accusing every Jew who believes in Rabbinic or Talmudic law to be a fanatic as well. The truth is that so much hinges on the particular conception that one has of Islamic law and the interpretation that one follows. Islamic law is derived from two distinct sources: the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet (known as the Hadith and Sunnah). Traditions purporting to quote the Prophet verbatim are known as Hadith. The Sunnah, however, is a broader term; it refers to the Hadith as well as to narratives purporting to describe the conduct of the Prophet and his companions in a variety of settings and contexts. In Islam, the Quran occupies a unique and singular status as the literal word of God transmitted by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet Muhammad did nothing more than communicate word for word God's revelation and Muslims preserved the text and transmitted it in its original form and language to subsequent generations. Muslims believe that God warranted and promised to guard the text of the Quran from any possible alterations, revisions, deletions, or redactions, and therefore, while Muslims may disagree about the meaning and import of the revelation, there is a broad consensus among Muslims on the integrity of the text. At times the Quran addresses itself to the Prophet, specifically, but on other occasions the Quran speaks to all Muslims or to humanity at large. In different contexts, the Quran will address Jews or Christians or the polytheists. After the Quran, most Muslims consider the Sunnah of the Prophet as the second most authoritative source of Islam. Although the Quran and Sunnah are considered the two primary sources of Islamic theology and law, there are material differences between them. The Quran is primarily concerned with ethics and morality; the Sunnah, however, contains everything ranging from enunciations of moral principles, to detailed prescriptions on various matters of personal and social conduct, to mythology and historical narratives. Not all of the Sunnah can easily translate into a set of straightforward normative commands, and therefore, Muslim jurists argued that parts of the Sunnah are intended as legislative and binding, while other parts are simply descriptive and for the most part, not binding. Most importantly, the huge body of literature that embodies the Sunnah is complex and generally inaccessible to the lay person. In order to systematically and comprehensively analyze what the Sunnah, as a whole, has to say on a particular topic requires a considerable amount of technical knowledge and training. In part, this is due to the fact that the Sunnah literature reflects a rather wide array of conflicting and competing ideological orientations and outlooks that exist in tension with each other. Selective and non-systematic approaches to the Sunnah produce determinations that are extremely imbalanced and that are highly skewed in favor of a particular ideological orientation or another. And yet, such selective and imbalanced treatments of the Sunnah are commonplace in the contemporary Muslim world. Nevertheless, it is important to note that many of the basic rituals of Islam were derived from the Sunnah traditions. In addition, the Sunnah helps in contextualizing the Quranic revelation, and also in understanding the historical framework and role of the Islamic message. Consequently, it is not possible to simply ignore this formidable oral tradition, or focus exclusively on the Quran, without doing serious damage to the structure of the Islamic religion as a whole.