Laws

You know

looking at the ways that humans behave, it can be very puzzling,

especially when those humans are muslim.

For instance,

when you are looking at shari’ah these days,

it would seem that the only people who speak about it or write about it are male,

while most of what they say or write often seems to be

largely about the behaviour of the female of the species.

Isn’t that peculiar?

So do women have nothing to do with Shari’ah

except to do as they are told?

If Shari’ah is about the nature of Islam,

and Islam is for everybody, male and female,

surely women need to be involved as much as men.

For at the end of their days, women will have to stand before their God and say whether they have searched to find truth,

both in the creation around them and in their understanding of the best way to serve the Will of God,

and surely that means trying to understand the Shari’ah.

So just like men, they need to look to the Words that God sent us to read,

and listen to what people say about the example of God's Messenger,

and look to what records remain of the famous thinkers in Islamic history,

and listen to such discussion as there might be today.

And each one has to apply their brains to all that information, and come up with an opinion.

Which is what muslim lawyers do when they come up with a legal opinion,

a fatwah.

Now as the Shari'ah is part of everyone’s Islam, they have to study it.

And the first thing to be considered is whether there can be more than one Shari'ah,

because people seem to have different ideas as to what it is.

So can there be more than one way to be right?

Well, Shari’ah lawyers seem to think so, as they have been arguing about things since the time of the Messenger,

but one thing that they all seem to agree on is that everyone else should just let lawyers decide.

Now, when humans are children they know very little about the world,

so it might be expected that they recognise that adults probably know what is best most of the time,

and do as they are told.

But as they grow up, they learn enough about life to decide things for themselves.

So why would Shari’ah be any different?

Why would they let someone treat them like children,

telling them what they can and can’t do,

that they shouldn’t think for themselves but just do as they are told?

The only reason is if they can’t be bothered to learn enough about the subject to think for themselves

and are happy for someone else to tell them what to do.

But even that requires some learning and understanding.

Each individual, male or female, is personally responsible for their behaviour before God

So each person needs to at least learn enough to consider

whether they are going to let someone else tell them what to do

without thinking about whether or not they trust their opinion.

But that itself is not an easy thing.

Just think about what people call Shari'ah nowadays, and see how many ways there are to end up with misunderstandings,

all the different kinds of laws,

all the different areas of life to which our laws apply.

There are the laws for the correctness of the things we do only for God,

like the precise ways that we make the Sala or the Hajj,

or the rules for Ramadhan.

Then there are the laws for how we should behave when we are on our own with God,

the ways of life that are best for us wherever we are,

our personal behaviour even when others are not around.

Then there are the laws made for social benefit,

our manners,

our methods of interaction,

our cultures.

And then again there are the laws made for the exercise of power,

for the benefit of those who can enforce priviledge.

So there's a lot of laws to think about,

especially when looking at them through the eyes of a myriad cultures,

through nearly 1500 years.

And from their simple beginnings drawn from the Qur'an,

unwritten but lived by Muhammad the Messenger,

the laws that ruled the civilisations of the Muslim world were discussed, formalised, and written down.

So of course there is a lot to say about the way that those systems of law proceeded.

Who says which direction?

What about the almost perfect and the nearly haram?