SHARIAH - AN INTRODUCTION Introduction

Shari’ah is the detailed code of conduct comprisingways and modes of worship, standards of morals and life and laws that allow and proscribe,that judge between right and wrong. Such canon law has undergone amendments from time totime and though each Prophet had the same Din (the religion), he brought with him a different Shari’ah tosuit the conditions of his own people and time. This process ended with the advent ofMuhammad, the last Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him), who brought with himthe final code which was to apply to all mankind for all times to come. The religion, as such, has undergone nochange, but all previous Shari’ahs stand abrogated because of the comprehensiveShari’ah that the last Prophet brought with him.

The Sources of Shari’ah
We draw upon two major sources to learn about this finalShari’ah: the Qur’an and the Hadith. The Qur’an is a divine revelation- each and every word of it is from Allah. The Hadith is a collection of the instructions issuedor the memoirs of the last Prophet’s conduct and behaviour, as preserved by those who werepresent in his company or those to whom these were handed down by the first witnesses.These were later sifted and collected by divines and compiled in the form of books among which the collections made by Malik, Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Nasa’iand IbnMajah are considered to be the most authentic.

The Principles Of The Shari’ah
The Shari’ah stipulates the law of God and provides guidance for the regulation of life in the bestinterests of man. Its objective is to show the best way to man and provide him with the waysand means to fulfil his needs in the most successful and most beneficial way. The law of God isout and out for the benefit of human beings. There is nothing in it which tends to waste man’s powers, or tosuppress his natural needs and desires, or to kill hisnatural moral urges and emotions. It doesnot plead for asceticism. It does not say: abandon the world, give up all ease and comfort oflife, leave your homes and wander about on plains and mountains and in jungles withoutbread or cloth, putting yourself to inconvenience and self-annihilation. God has created thisworld for the benefit of mankind.The Shari’ah is meantto guide the steps of man in this respect. It forbids all that is harmful to man, and allows orordains all that is useful and beneficial to him.
The fundamental principle of the Law is that man has the right, and in some cases the duty, to fulfil all his genuine needs and desires and make every conceivable effort to promotehis interests and achieve success and happiness. However, he should doall this in such a way that not only are the interests of other people not jeopardised and no harmis caused to their strivings towards the fulfilment of their rights and duties. There should be allpossible social cohesion, mutual assistance and co-operation among human beings in theachievement of their objectives.
In respect of those things in which good and evil, gain and lossare inextricably mixed up, the tenet of this law is to choose a little harm for the sake of greaterbenefit and sacrifice a little benefit, so avoiding a greater harm. This is the basic approach of theShari’ah.

Rights and Obligations
The scheme of life which Islam envisages consists of a set of rights and obligations, and everyhuman being, everyone who accepts this religion, is enjoined to live up to them. Broadlyspeaking, the law of Islam imposes four kinds of rights and obligations on every man:
(i)    therights of God which every man is obliged to fulfil;
(ii)    his own rights upon his own self;
(iii)    therights of other people over him; and
(iv)    the rights of those powers and resources which Godhas placed in his service and has empowered him to use for his benefit.
The Shari’ah discusses clearlyeach and every kind of right and deals with it in detail. It also throws light on the ways andmeans through which the obligations can be discharged - so that all of them may besimultaneously implemented and none of them violated or trampled underfoot.

1. The Rights of God
The primary and foremost right of God is that man should have faith in Him alone. Man should acknowledge His authority and associate none with Him. This is epitomised in theKalimah: La- ilahaillallah (there is no god but Allah).
The second right of God on us is that man should accept whole-heartedly and follow Hisguidance and should seek His pleasure with bothmind and soul. We fulfil the dictates of this right by placing belief in God’s Prophet and byaccepting his guidance and leadership.
The third right of God on us is that we should obey Him honestly and unreservedly.
We fulfil the needs of this right by following God’s Law as contained in the Qur’an and then Sunnah.
The fourth right of God on us is to worship Him.
These rights and obligations precede all other rights and as such they are discharged even atthe cost of some sacrifice of other rights and duties. For instance, in offering prayers andkeeping fasts man has to sacrifice many of his personal rights. He has to get up early in themorning for his prayers and in so doing sacrifices his sleep and rest. During the day he oftenputs off important work and gives up his recreation to worship his Creator. In the month ofRamadan (the month of fasts) he experiences hunger and inconvenience solely to please hisLord. By paying zakah he loses his wealth and demonstrates that the love of God is aboveeverything else. In the pilgrimage he sacrifices wealth and takes on a difficult journey. And inJihad he sacrifices money, material and all that he has - even his own life.Similarly, in the discharge of these obligations one has to sacrifice some of the ordinary rights ofothers and thus injure one’s own interests at large. A servant has to leave his work to worshiphis Lord.

2. The Rights of One’s Own Self
Next come man’s personal rights, that is, the rights of one’s own self.The fact is that man is more cruel and unjust to himself than to any other being. On the face ofit this may seem astonishing: how can a man be unjust to himself, particularly when we find thathe loves himself most? How can he be his own enemy? The greatest weakness of man is that when he feels an overpowering desire, instead of resistingit, he succumbs to it, and in its gratification knowingly causes great harm to himself. There is theman who drinks: he cannot stop his craving for it and does it at the cost of money, health,reputation and everything that he has. Another person is so fond of eating that in his eatingexcesses he damages his health and endangers his life. Another person becomes a slave to hissexual appetites and ruins himself in over-indulgence. Still another becomes enamoured ofspiritual elevations: he suppresses his genuine desires, refuses to satisfy the physical needs,controls his appetite, does away with clothes, leaves his home and retires into mountains andjungles. He believes that the world is not meant for him and abhors it in all its forms andmanifestations.
Islam stands for human welfare and its avowed objective is to establish balance in life. That iswhy the Shari’ah clearly declares that your own self also has certain rights upon you. Afundamental principle of it is: “there are rights upon you of your own person.”The Shari’ah forbids the use of all those things which are injurious to man’s physical, mentalor moral existence. It forbids the consumption of blood, intoxicating drugs, flesh of the pig,beasts of prey, poisonous and unclean animals and carcases; for all these have undesirableeffects on the physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual life of man. While forbidding thesethings, Islam enjoins man to use all clean, healthy and useful things and asks him not to deprivehis body of clean food, for man’s body, too, has a right on him. The law of Islam forbids nudityand orders man to wear decent and dignified dress. It exhorts him to work for a living andstrongly disapproves of him remaining idle and jobless. The spirit of the Shari’ah is that manshould use for his comfort and welfare the powers God has bestowed on him and the resourcesthat He has spread on the earth and in the heavens.

3. The Rights of Other Men
On the one hand the Shari’ah has enjoined man to fulfil his personal rights and be just to his ownself, and on the other, it has asked him to seek their fulfilment in such a way that the rights ofother people are not violated. The Shari’ah has tried to strike a balance between the rights ofman and the rights of society so that no conflict arises and there is co-operation in establishingthe law of God.Islam has totally forbidden theft,bribery, forgery, cheating, the levying of interest and usury, for whatever man gains by thesemeans is obtained by causing loss and injury to others. Back-biting, tale-telling and slander havebeen forbidden. Gambling, lottery, speculation and all games of chance have been prohibited,for in all of them one person gains at the expense of thousands of losers.All those forms of exploitative commerce have been prohibited in which one party alone is to bethe loser. Monopoly, hoarding, black-marketing, holding of land from cultivation and all other
forms of individual and social aggrandizement have been prohibited. Murder, blood-spillingand spreading of mischief, disorder and destruction have been made crimes, for no-one has aright to take away the life or property of other people merely for his personal gain orgratification.Adultery, fornication and unnatural sexual indulgence have been strictly prohibited for they notonly vitiate the morality and impair the health of the perpetrator but also spread corruption andimmorality in society, cause venereal disease, damage both public health and the morals of thecoming generations, upset relations between man and man and split the very fabric of thecultural and social structure of the community. Islam seeks to eliminate, root and branch, suchcrimes.

4. The Rights of All Creatures
God has honoured man with authority overHis countless Creatures. Everything has been harnessed for him. He has been endowed withthe power to subdue them and make them serve his objectives. This superior position givesman authority over them and he enjoys the right to use them as he likes. But that does not meanthat God has given him unbridled liberty. Islam says that all creation has certain rights on man.
The basic right of other creatures is that man should not waste them on fruitless ventures nor should he unnecessarily hurt themor harm them. When he uses them for his service he should cause them the least possible harm,and should employ the best and the least injurious methods of using them.For example, man is allowed toslaughter animals for food but have been forbidden to kill them merely for fun or sport. Toslaughter them, the method of zabh (slaughtering) has been fixed, the best possible methodof obtaining meat from animals. Other methods are either more painful or spoil the meat anddeprive it of some of its useful properties. Similarly, killing an animal by causing continuous painand injury is considered abominable in Islam. Islam allows the killing of dangerous andvenomous animals and of beasts of prey only because it values man’s life more than theirs. Buthere, too, it does not allow their killing by resort to prolonged painful methods.Regarding the beasts of burden and animals used for riding and transport, Islam distinctlyforbids man to keep them hungry, to put intolerable burdens on them and to beat them cruelly.To catch birds and imprison them in cages without any special purpose is consideredabominable. Islam does not approve even of the useless cutting of trees and bushes. Man canuse their fruits and other produce, but he has not the right to destroy them. Vegetables, after all,possess life. Nor does Islam allow waste among even lifeless things; so much so that itdisapproves of the wasteful flow of too much water. Its avowed purpose is to avoid waste inevery conceivable form and to make the best use of all resources - living and lifeless.