Monday, October 12, 2009

Shariah, Fiqh, and Fatwah

Talibans and Al-Qaida and their supporters talk about implementing Shariah law.  Therefore, I looked up Shariah's definition in Jasser Auda's book, "Maqasid Al-Shariah As Philosophy of Islamic Law, A System's Approach."  Mr. Auda is a contemporary Islamic scholar who has a Ph.D. in System Analysis from University of Waterloo, Masters in Islamic Jurisprudence from Islamic University in Michigan, and Ph.D. in Religion and Islamic Studies from University of Wales, U.K.  He is well versed both in science and religion, a rare commodity these days in the age of secular Muslims and Mullas of Islamic world.  Mr. Auda quotes Ibn al-Qayyim, a noted Islamic scholar of 14th century (d 1347 CE) as follows:

"Shari'ah is based on wisdom and achieving people's welfare in this life and the afterlife.  Shariah is all about justice, mercy, wisdom, and good.  Thus any ruling that replaces justice with injustice, mercy with its opposite, common good with mischief, or wisdom with nonsense, is a ruling that does not belong to the Shariah, even if it is claimed to be so according to some interpretation."

Mr. Auda also defines the terms Shariah, Fiqh, and Fatwah which are commonly misunderstood as follows:

1. Shariah
The revelation that Prophet Mohammad (SAAS) had received and made practicing it the message and mission of his life, i.e. the Quran and Prophet tradition.
2. Fiqh
The huge collection of judicial opinions that were given by various jurists from various schools of thought, in regards to the application of shariah to their various real life situations throughout the past 14 centuries.
3. Fatwa
The application of shariah or fiqh to Muslims' real life today.

Fiqh cannot be considered Islamic law in all instances, because each scholar did judicial reasoning for their own environments and times.  Fatwa cannot be always considered as Islamic law.  If the fatwa is copied verbatim from some classic book in the Islamic law, then it is quite possibly flawed because it is quite probably addressing a different world with different circumstances.  If the fatwa is allowing people to commit an act of injustice, discrimination, harm, or immorality, even if it were to be based on interpretation, then it is also wrong and un-Islamic.

Based on the above discussion by Mr. Auda, I believe that some of the Fatwas issued by so called Imams or Mullas may not be acceptable.  Case in point, the treatment of women and not allowing them to study or justification for suicide bombings by innocent youth convinced by their Imams Fatwas.