Middle
Ground

You know

everything in God's creation

and everything it is possible for us to do

is permitted,

halal,

unless it is specifically named as something forbidden,

that is haram.

But the number of things that are named as haram are very few

compared to the countless number of things that are not named.

Which means that almost everything we can think of has to be halal.

God gave us the creation to live in,

and made us all have different likes and dislikes,

and gave us free will

to choose what we want to do in that creation.

Which means that inevitably

some people are going to choose things that other people don't like,

but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong

even though other people may think it.

And people can also change their own minds

about things that they have done,

and regret choices they have made.

One of the things that goes with humans being given free will

is that they are given freedom to make mistakes.

Making mistakes is one of the ways that humans learn things,

trying something and finding out that it doesn't do what they thought it would,

and doesn't work out the way they wanted.

So clearly,

just because something is permitted

doesn't mean that it is necessarily a good thing.

There are things people can do

that may be good in some ways

but not so good in others.

There are ways of acting that are full of risk,

like running across a busy road

or playing with matches in a firework factory,

But what about the risks of mountain climbing,

or tightrope walking,

or lion taming?

How dangerous does something have to be

before you make a law about it?

Where do you draw the line between

what is allowed

and what is forbidden?

What about things like X-rays

that are wonderfully useful in small amounts

but can kill you in large doses?

People have to decide about such things,

and we set laws to prevent accidents from happening,

but these are not part of God's Law,

the Law we call the Shari'ah.

And we make laws to control all sorts of other areas of our behaviour,

that we think are bad for our community,

and as muslims we make such decisions about what is good and what is bad

based on God's guidance in the Qur'an and the example of God's Messenger.

But what we decide in these matters comes from human brains

and like all things human is open to error.

So we need to be able to talk about things

in ways that are not simply black and white,

not simply forbidden or permitted.

And over the years muslim lawyers agreed on ways

to divide up all the vast range of permitted things

into four different levels,

and gave them Arabic words as names for the different legal terms.

And to speak about the level that is not quite Haram

we use the name Makruh,

and that is used to describe things that are permitted

but disliked and to be discouraged.

And to describe things that are not an obligation on us,

but are recommended,

we use the terms Mustahabb or Mandub.

And for things that are permitted

but neither recommended or discouraged

we use the term Mubah.

Now the opposite of when something is forbidden is not really just when something is permitted,

but when something is obligatory,

something that we have to do,

and there are very few things that we have been told are a necessary part of our Deen in a way that is compulsory,

and these are limited to those practices that are an essential part of our Islam,

like our Sala,

fasting in Ramadhan,

and paying our Zaka.

But giving charity over and above our Zakat

may be recommended

but is not compulsory,

and keeping everything to yourself apart from your Zakat

may be discouraged

but is not forbidden.

And making extra prayers may be Sunnah

and therefore recommended,

but it is not obligatory like the Sala.

And so, over the years the Shari'ah was shaped

to serve our needs in the best ways that our legal minds could contrive,

and all may have done their best to serve God's purpose

and for the benefit of the societies in which they lived.

But we must always remember

that this process never ends,

and how important it is for our Deen

that we struggle to understand the laws that we need to live by

if we truly wish to follow the Will of Allah.