Sharia Law

What is sharia?

It literally means "path," or "path to water". Religiously it means God’s law that will provide the path to salvation. The law is derived from four main sources:
-the Quran, Islam's holy book, considered the literal word of God;
-the hadith, or record of the actions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, whose life is to be emulated;
-ijma, the consensus of Islamic scholars; and
-qiyas, a kind of reasoning that uses analogies to apply precedents established by the holy texts to problems not covered by them, for example, a ban on narcotics based on the Quranic injunction against wine-drinking.

Does sharia apply only to religious matters?

No. Islam traditionally has no barrier between religious and secular life. Therefore, Sharia governs all aspects of life, from religious rituals to politics, economics, banking, business, and social issues. A professor of Islamic law and history at Cornell University puts it thus: "In Islam, there is no separation between the secular and the sacred. The law is suffused with religion." Muslims believe that sharia is not something the intelligence of man can prove wrong, it is only to be accepted by humans, since it is based on the will of Allah. Since Muslims believe their religion and government are ordained by Allah, they also believe that Islam is intended to be the religion of all mankind. Some facets of sharia have become part of modern legal codes and are enforced by national judicial systems, while others are a matter of personal conscience.

Is there only one interpretation of sharia?

No. There are five major schools of sharia that formed after the death of the Prophet Mohammed--four in the Sunni tradition and one in the Shiite tradition. A school consists of a guild, or group of scholars, that developed specific interpretations of Islamic law; over the centuries, its precedents became legally binding. Muslims in different geographical regions favored different sharia schools and that is why some areas order death for Muslim, and possible death for non-Muslim, critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.

What is apostasy?

Apostasy is leaving a religion for another religion or otherwise abandoning one’s faith. Conversions from Islam to other religions are generally not permitted in Muslim countries, and the traditional punishment is death. Also, since there is no separation between “church and state” in Muslim theology, apostasy resembles the crime of treason. Muslims who support the death penalty for apostasy use as their foundation a Hadith (a saying attributed to Muhammad) in which he said: "Kill whoever changes his religion." Apostates are given a time to repent, but if they refuse, then they are typically killed.

Most information taken from Sharon Otterman, associate director, cfr.org