Sharia originated in Arabia as a more developed system of feudal law and evolved as a confessional law, organically linked to the theology of Islam, infused with its religious-mystical concepts. Islam views legal provisions as a part of the unified divine law and order that governs the world. Sharia includes the normative part (fiqh), including legal norms that define the relationship of Muslims with Allah (ibadat). The importance of qualities such as patience, humility, and fulfillment is particularly emphasized in Sharia, with references to justice and mercy. Legal meaning was attributed to five types of actions: obligatory, recommended, permitted, prohibited, and reprehensible - all of which were connected to the life of a Muslim.
Sharia (from Arabic, "the path to follow") emerged as a result of the activities of the Prophet Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, and developed through his successors - the four Rightly Guided Caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali, and other companions. By the 9th century, the process of establishing Sharia was nearing completion: its relative integrity emerged; however, the presence of many legal institutions, constructions, and concepts within Sharia hindered the reform of an internally coherent system and contributed to the emergence of various currents, schools, etc.
At the core of Sharia lay a confessional principle. A Muslim, being in any country, must adhere to Sharia, maintaining fidelity to Islam, which contributed to the transformation of Sharia into a peculiar "global system" of feudal law. This, in turn, led to differences in the interpretation of legal norms and the resolution of specific legal disputes, resulting in the case-by-case development of Sharia. If there was no answer to a dispute in the Quran and Sunnah, competent individuals would formulate new legal prescriptions based on the principles of ijtihad.
The most important source of Sharia, the foundation of Muslim law, the "root" of the legal system is the Quran - the Holy Book of Muslims. The Quran consists of parables, prayers, sermons, and behavioral prescriptions for Muslims attributed to Muhammad. In the mid-7th century, under Caliph Umar, the Quran was finalized. The Quran consists of 114 chapters (surahs) and 6219 verses (ayat). About 500 verses contain prescriptions for the behavior of a righteous Muslim, and only no more than 80 of them have a legal character. In the text of the Quran itself, this Holy Book of Muslims is referred to as a legal code. The legal norms of the Quran mainly concern marriage and family.
The second source of Sharia is the Sunnah (Sacred Tradition). It includes numerous accounts (hadiths) of the judgments and actions of Muhammad himself and consists of six canonical collections. It was believed that the hadiths that were narrated by the companions of Muhammad had legal force. Shiites recognized as valid only those hadiths that traced back to the last of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs - Ali (Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law) and his supporters. The Sunnah contains legal prescriptions on a wide range of issues related to marriage, inheritance, evidence, and judicial law, as well as rules concerning slaves.
The third source of Sharia was Ijma (from Arabic, "the general consensus of the Muslim community") - one of the most authoritative sources of Muslim law after the Quran and Sunnah. It was formed from the coinciding opinions on religious and legal issues expressed by the companions of Muhammad, and later from the statements of the most influential Muslim theologians-jurists (imams, muftis, mujtahids, ulama) or in the form of interpretations of the texts of the Quran and Sunnah, as well as through the formation of new norms that became mandatory for application in accordance with Muhammad's instructions: "If you do not know, ask those who know."
To Ijma as a source of law under Sharia was attached the fatwa - decisions and opinions of individual muftis on legal issues. In the 7th-9th centuries, the method of ijtihad allowed Muslim law to develop doctrinally in the works of the founders of legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) and their students. Later, in Central Asia, such a source was the conclusions of ulama. In the 10th century, an extensive systematization of legal material on Sharia was conducted, which contributed to its spread as a legal system. French scholar R. Charles highlights among the sources of Muslim law the tafsir (interpretation of the Quran), amal, kanun (acts issued by the state, monarch, high officials) in various forms (Turkish firman, beylical decree, Moroccan dahir). Kanuns were not to contradict Sharia.
A contentious source of Muslim law was qiyas (decision of legal issues by analogy). According to qiyas, a rule established in the Quran, Sunnah, or Ijma can be applied to a case if that rule does not directly apply to the specific case. Thus, qiyas is an analogy-based conclusion. Qiyas allowed for the rapid regulation of new social relations and contributed to the liberation of Sharia from dogmas of an ideological nature. The method of qiyas was deeply substantiated by Abu Hanifa and his followers - the Hanafis. Hanbalis and Shiites did not recognize qiyas as a source of law. The norms formulated by Muslim legal doctrine based on Ijma and qiyas constitute the second group of norms of Sharia (the first group consists of the norms of the Quran and Sunnah, which are fundamental).
Sharia, as an additional source of law, allowed for legal customs (urf), including local customs that were not directly included in Muslim law but did not contradict its principles and norms. Urf refers to customs that have developed in Arab society. Additionally, there were adats - legal customs of numerous conquered peoples, as well as those customs that were influenced by Sharia and Islam. Urf and adats were ordinary unwritten law.
As already noted, Muslim law is closely linked to Islam - it is its product. The developed Muslim legal doctrine based on the Quran and Sunnah is a source of law in the narrow sense of the word. On its basis, state norm-setting is developing (in Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE). The Islamic system of social-normative regulation includes various types of rules of behavior (religious, moral, legal customs, rules of coexistence, politeness), i.e., it has a complex character. The modern Muslim legal doctrine does not equate Sharia with law (all norms of Sharia are called fiqh, while norms regulating interpersonal relations are called muamalat, as a legal category).
Next page.
