The sharia, or Islamic law, is an essential part of the Islamic religion for many Muslims, and today poses interesting questions for Islamic countries wrestling with democracy and dealing with Islamist political parties. Developed over the course of centuries, the sharia—literally, the way—is considered to be divine law, although there are several schools of interpretation within it. The four Sunni schools developed, some scholars argue, in response to the Shi'a threat which was evident in the major revolts against the Abbasid caliphate in the tenth and eleventh centuries, including the Zanj and Qarmatian revolts. The four schools—Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi'i—consolidated Sunni identity, for although they held different interpretations on certain issues (the Maliki school, for example, recognized saints, while the others did not) and represented different geographical areas, the schools respected each other's rulings, and Sunnis could largely choose the school to which they wished to belong. Shi'a legal schools also developed, the most prevalent among them being the Jaafari (Twelver) and Ismaili (Sevener) schools.
The sources of law are important to consider. The Qur'an and sunnah (the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad) were obvious sources, as they are the foundation of Islam (although the sayings of the Prophet are often disputed), but other sources included ijtihad (free thought and independent legal reasoning), ijma' (consensus), and qiyas (analogy). Quite a substantial body of law developed as the result of fiqh (jurisprudence), covering many domains of life: prayer and rituals of worship, dietary regulations, politics, economics, contracts, marriage, divorce, warfare, sexuality, and social issues.
The discussion of the sharia reaches Western audiences today perhaps because its implementation is often associated with Islamist parties, who stress the eternal applicability of the divine law. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, stressed the need for the full implementation of the sharia in society. Sayyid Qutb, a later shaper of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology, even wrote that the rulers in Egypt had ceased to be pious Muslim rulers who implemented the sharia and could therefore be killed. Indeed the Islamists who have taken over Middle Eastern countries politically or gained a degree of political power over the authoritarian rulers who largely came to rule following the colonialists' exodus from the region have implemented or attempted to implement an Islamizing agenda. One can see examples in the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hezbollah's sharia courts in southern Lebanon, the Islamic Action Front's agenda in Jordan, the strict Wahhabi rule in Saudi Arabia, and a host of other countries.
To see the Islamist movement only from this angle, however, is to ignore most practicalities of the current political situation in the Middle East. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a prominent political sociologist and democracy promoter in Egypt, in the Nov. 1, 2006 Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture points out that two-thirds of the Muslim countries in the world are democratic—direct evidence that Islam is not contrary to democracy, and that the sharia can adapt to modern civil law. Indeed many Muslim countries, including democratic ones, have found ways to use the sharia in some form to deal with personal, family, and religious matters. The existence of Islamist parties with Islamizing agendas (that aim ultimately to restore the sharia) does not mean that there is not a place for these parties in the democratic system. Ibrahim, taking the interesting case of Egypt (which is ruled by an authoritarian executive which cracks down on all opposition—Islamist and liberal-secular). He says that the popularity of Islamists is an "expression of legitimate frustration with ruling regimes that have failed to meet their people's most basic aspirations, whose brutality and corruption have become rampant."
Just as Arab nationalists rallied the people because of their defiance to external powers in the last century, Islamists are rallying the people today from the mosques—the one venue still available to reach the people. (The Muslim Brotherhood in 2005 won 88 seats in the Egyptian parliament). If the Islamists (in Egypt's case, the Muslim Brotherhood) are integrated into the democratic system, however, and given legal status as a party, they will be forced to moderate their policies and accept the democratic system. As has happened in several Muslim democracies, they could very well lose their mass popular appeal to the people as the holy resistance after 10 to 15 years of democratic participation, Ibrahim says.
Thus we see that as the sharia changed and adapted over time centuries ago to meet the circumstances of the day, so can it change today. The sharia, in fact, is built on the notions of free reasoning and consensus—meaning adaptability. The trick in the twenty-first century is to co-opt the modern promoters of the sharia (Islamists) fully into the democratic system. Only then will their policies be moderated, the democratic system secured, and the voice of the people represented in their governments.
The discussion of the sharia reaches Western audiences today perhaps because its implementation is often associated with Islamist parties, who stress the eternal applicability of the divine law. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, stressed the need for the full implementation of the sharia in society. Sayyid Qutb, a later shaper of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology, even wrote that the rulers in Egypt had ceased to be pious Muslim rulers who implemented the sharia and could therefore be killed. Indeed the Islamists who have taken over Middle Eastern countries politically or gained a degree of political power over the authoritarian rulers who largely came to rule following the colonialists' exodus from the region have implemented or attempted to implement an Islamizing agenda. One can see examples in the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hezbollah's sharia courts in southern Lebanon, the Islamic Action Front's agenda in Jordan, the strict Wahhabi rule in Saudi Arabia, and a host of other countries.
To see the Islamist movement only from this angle, however, is to ignore most practicalities of the current political situation in the Middle East. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a prominent political sociologist and democracy promoter in Egypt, in the Nov. 1, 2006 Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture points out that two-thirds of the Muslim countries in the world are democratic—direct evidence that Islam is not contrary to democracy, and that the sharia can adapt to modern civil law. Indeed many Muslim countries, including democratic ones, have found ways to use the sharia in some form to deal with personal, family, and religious matters. The existence of Islamist parties with Islamizing agendas (that aim ultimately to restore the sharia) does not mean that there is not a place for these parties in the democratic system. Ibrahim, taking the interesting case of Egypt (which is ruled by an authoritarian executive which cracks down on all opposition—Islamist and liberal-secular). He says that the popularity of Islamists is an "expression of legitimate frustration with ruling regimes that have failed to meet their people's most basic aspirations, whose brutality and corruption have become rampant."
Just as Arab nationalists rallied the people because of their defiance to external powers in the last century, Islamists are rallying the people today from the mosques—the one venue still available to reach the people. (The Muslim Brotherhood in 2005 won 88 seats in the Egyptian parliament). If the Islamists (in Egypt's case, the Muslim Brotherhood) are integrated into the democratic system, however, and given legal status as a party, they will be forced to moderate their policies and accept the democratic system. As has happened in several Muslim democracies, they could very well lose their mass popular appeal to the people as the holy resistance after 10 to 15 years of democratic participation, Ibrahim says.
Thus we see that as the sharia changed and adapted over time centuries ago to meet the circumstances of the day, so can it change today. The sharia, in fact, is built on the notions of free reasoning and consensus—meaning adaptability. The trick in the twenty-first century is to co-opt the modern promoters of the sharia (Islamists) fully into the democratic system. Only then will their policies be moderated, the democratic system secured, and the voice of the people represented in their governments.
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