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The Qur'an – Does It Shape the Life of an Everyday Muslim?

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"The Qur 'an – does it shape the life of an everyday Muslim?"

Unlike many other religions Islam makes very little distinction between the spiritual and the secular parts of life. Islam means submission to the way of God and this can be seen in the way in which the vast majority of Muslims lead their daily lives through close adherence to the Qur 'an and the teachings of the Prophet.

Muslim society is ideological in that the followers of the faith are making a commitment to follow God and to accept the word of God as the truth, basing their concept of good and evil on these teachings. In this way the Qur 'an becomes the source of law within Muslim society rather than the laws which are developed by man.

Muhammad was seen as a …show more content…

Ruthven, in chapter 4, page 75, states that of the six thousand verses "only" ten per cent "can be converted into positive religious or legal requirements". But this in itself shows how the Qur 'an could be seen as more than just shaping the lives of its followers with some six hundred obligations being placed upon them which observance of the Qur 'an would make mandatory.

In the ethical and legal dimension of the Islamic faith these "laws" and the other requirements of the Qur 'an directly affect the lives of its followers. There are many laws which have derived from the Qur 'an that cover what people can eat, divorce, marriage, contract, commercial activates and inheritance etc. There were many more that were developed by the Prophet himself through his own example, (the Sunna), and which are recorded in Hadith literature.

From the Qur 'an and the Sunna of the Prophet the Sharia was developed. The law on which many Islamic societies are based. The Qur 'an did not provide for many of the laws in a growing world and the Sunna, the examples of the Prophet allowed for individual interpretation. This then required some for of consensus (ijma) from this was set precedent which in many ways mirrors the development of "common law" in other societies.

The development of Sharia was based upon the requirements of the Qur 'an, the Sunna of the Prophet and consensus view of

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