I witness it here once again that people have a very incomplete view on how Islamic states are structured. I’ll give you a short introduction. Having done this already for an other message board, the sweat of translating myself while making at the same time and understandable synthese is already dried.
State Structure and Shari’a
During the life of Muhammed, law and jurisdiction of the Umma (Islamic society) was joined to the person of the Prophet.
To organize the state after his death, his absence and thus the absence of his leadership in those matters was from in the very beginning a problem. In fact: there are not that many prescriptions for that matter given in Al Qur’an.
Solving this among the scholars led to what is known as the Sunna of Muhammed, which is the tradition of his way of life (= behaviour) and to the Hadieth, which is the tradition of Muhammed’s sayings, decisions, actions in general, thus also about state organization and jurisdiction.
With Al Qur’an as first source, those traditions were used to establish the Islamic Law, As-Shari’a, which covers everything, from religious duties over family and personal life until state organization and its Law system.
This was an extremely brief explanation about what was developed during the first centuries of Islam, with on the way the developing of the education in this law, resulting finally in four recognized Law Schools we still know and who are influencing one or several Islamic countries, depending the Law School that particular country follows by developing it’s own state organization and founding its own state laws on.
Islamic countries are in their State organization and Laws just as different as the Western countries differ from each other.
So there is no singular “Islamic” state representing the whole Islamic World or a whole religion.
There is only one thing that can be considered as a completely reliable representative of our fait, and that is Al Qur’an while we consider that as the word of Allah.
Followed in this by Sunna and Hadieth, but still they merely remain the words of humans and as I explained: in the matters of State organization and Law, the great differences among the Islamic countries resort in their different Law Schools and above that the different way they introduce these teachings in their own Law system.
One has to take in mind by this that **the Shari’a is a guideline and not a decision model like in Western Law. **
The method as applied by the Shari’a knows two levels:
- Like in the Western jurisdiction: the definitions of the act of law and their consequences.
- There is no comparison possible in its expression of the religious character: the human behaviour is completely judged on its religious value in the hereafter.
On this day, the influence of the European system is introduced in practically every Islamic country and the prescriptions of the Shari’a have only a reduced validation.
If we talk about the importance of the Shari’a on the different law systems in the world, one can distinct globally four groups of countries:
1.some countries like Saoudi Arabia, where the Shari’a as was established by the school of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, now represented by the derivation of this teaching known as the Wahhabi movement, is the general law. Subjects not mentioned in the Sharie’a are regulated by the state, but can never be in contradiction with the Shari’a.
2.Turkey, where the law is completely secular and the Sharie’a doesn’t have any influence on it.
3.Countries where the law is mainly secular and based on the European laws but where family- and heritage and the law considering religious foundations still is dominated by the Shari’a. This is then practically everywhere confirmed within the law, by which also reforms are introduced at the same time. This is for example the case in my country (we follow the school of Malik ibn Anas) where we have now recently formed a commission of religious scholars but under the lead of a famous woman to modernize the status of the women, which now still is regulated by articles influenced by the Muwatta while this results under family laws.
- Countries where these principles are practiced, but where besides that the Shari’a also has an indirect influence on other domains of the law, for example in an article in the constitution which specifies that the principles of the Sharie’a are the most important source of law.
Salaam. A
