Sharīʿa

Sharīʿa (Arab., ‘the path worn by camels to the water’). The path to be followed in Muslim life. The term goes back to Qurʾān. It became the description of the systematic organization of how Muslims should live, wherever there is no permitted freedom (see AL-HALAL WAʾL-ḤARĀM). This especially applies to the four classic schools, Ḥanafite, Ḥanbalite, Mālikite, and Shāfiʿite. They are rooted in Qurʾān and ḥadīth, the sunna of the Prophet, but with different attitudes to what else is legitimizing (see further SCHOOLS OF LAW). Sharīʿa is constantly extended in the present, since Islam cannot be a reproduction of life in 6th-cent. Arabia. The extension of sharīʿa is made particularly by ijmaʿ, qiyās and ijtihād, and in practice through fatwā. It is also modified by local custom (adat).

Actions are classified in sharīʿa into five categories (with detailed sub-divisions in each case: (i) obligatory (fard or wājib); (ii) meritorious; (iii) indifferent; (iv) reprehensible; (v) forbidden (ḥarām: see AL-HALAL WAʾL-ḤARĀM). Fundamental to all are the Five Pillars.