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Nature and Authority of Sharia Law Essay

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PAGE 1 – THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF THE SHARIA

PAGE 2 – HOW THE WILL OF GOD MAY BE KNOWN REGARDING CONTEMPORAY ISSUES

PAGE 3 – AUTHORITY

PAGE 4 – IMPORTANCE (GUIDE TO LIFE, ACCURACY)

PAGE 5 – DIFFERING UNDERSTANDINGS OF IJTIHAD

PAGE 6 – GLOSSARY

Nature and Authority of the Shari’a

In technical terms it is a clearly defined way of following the guidance of God that was left as a pattern for Islamic living by each of the messengers: Muhammad [SAW] left a Shari’a left for the Muslims that was based on the rules and regulations of the faith. We have seen this through the way Muslims pray five times a day keep the fast, obtaining the five pillars. The Shari’a is never an arbitrary law made up by the prophets or by a vote …show more content…

A mujtahid is an Islamic scholar who is competent to interpret sharia by Ijtihad.
The Qur’an commands Ijithad in early Islam as it was the common practice and later it was combined with early Islamic philosophy. Slowly it fell out of practice in the Sunni fiqh for many reasons.
A western scholar called Joseph Schacht stated that the close of the door of Ijtihad had occurred by the beginning for the 10th century.
Other scholars such as Wael Hallaq demonstrated that Ijtihad has remained an essential part of the Sunni Muslim tradition, despite the emphasis on the taqlid. Hallaq wrote that a minority always claimed that a properly-qualified scholar must have the right to ijtihad at all times. Long after the 10th century the principles of ijtihad continued to be discussed in the Islamic legal literature.

Qiya’s;
In Islamic jurisprudence, Qiya’s is the process of deductive analogy in which the teachings of the Hadith are compared and contrasted with those of the Qur'an, in order to apply a known injunction to a new circumstance and create a new injunction. The ruling of the Sunnah and the Qur'an may be used to solve or provide a response to a new problem that may arise. This, maybe the only the case providing that the set precedent or paradigm and the new problem that has come about will share operative causes (illah). Illah is the specific set of circumstances that trigger a certain law into action.
Sunni Islam and Shia Islam share

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