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Objectives of
Islamic Law
July 11, 2008 by khutbahs
The purpose and
ultimate objective for us is ‘Uboodiyya and Allah sent down
the Shari’ah in order to facilitate and help us achieve this purpose. Literally,
Shari’ah means the clear, well-trodden path to water. The linguistic
meaning of Shari’ah reverberates in its technical usage: just as water
is vital to human life so the clarity and uprightness of Shari’ah is
the means of life for souls and minds. Shari’ah is defined by our scholars as: al-Ahkaam
allatee sanna’a Allahu Ta’ala li ‘ibaadihi ‘ala lisaani raslulim minar rusul The laws or
rulings which Allah has legislated for his servants through the agency of
Messengers. The entire
Shari’ah according to the famous scholar Izzaddin Abdassalam is based on two
principles: 1. Jalbal
masalih - to accrue
benefits 2. Dar’ul
mafasid - to avoid
or ward off harms We believe that
all rulings that the Prophet brought are rulings that are for the benefit of
humanity but while those benefits sometimes are manifest and clear, there are
other aspects of Shari’ah the benefits of which we believe, even if we haven’t
realize yet because we know the source of it, which is Allah and He wants to
benefit His creation. Ibn Abbas (RA) said: Iza
sam’ita yad’ouka fainnama yad’ouka ilaa khairi If you hear
Allah calling you to something then know that He is calling you to something
good. Yureedullahu
bikumul yusra wa la yureedu bikumul ‘usr Allah wants
ease for you and He does not want to burden you Yureedullahu
liyukhaffifa ‘ankum wa khuliqal insaanu da’eefa Allah wants
to lighten your burdens, for man was created weak The aspects
of Shari’ah the benefit of which the rational mind can arrive at an
understanding of in this world are known as ma’qoolul ma’na,
i.e. clear in the outward or rational in the meaning. Examples of these would
be when you acquire a debt you have to fulfill it or when a person destroys
someone else’s property then he or she has to rectify what he had destroyed.
There is another element to the rulings of the Shari’ah for which we cannot
arrive at its benefit with our intellect, e.g. the Shari’ah necessitates that
we pray four rak’as for Zuhr, four rak’as for Asr, three rak’as for Maghrib and
four rak’as for Isha. Why those numbers? This we do not know but we know that
there is a reason why Allah chose those numbers. For instance when we look at
the prayer, Allah tells us: Aqimis
salata lidolookish shamsi ilaa ghasaqil layl Establish
prayer from the declining of the sun to the darkness of the night While we do not
know exactly why Allah has placed the prayer time the way He has but we do see
the wisdom in that the prayers of the day are spread apart. This is obviously
because the human being is preoccupied with his work. So from Fajr to Zuhr you
don’t have any prayer. The evening prayers in contrast are closer together. And
then you have a long gap between the Isha and Fajr prayers when we human beings
rest and sleep. There is all of this wisdom that can be seen in the prayer
timings. Ibn Rushd who was
a great legal jurist mentioned two reasons that these rulings are given to us:
the first of these is tazkiyatun-nafs, i.e. purification of
the soul. The other benefit according to Ibn Rushd is istislaam,
which means submission to Allah. And we see that this state of Istislaam was
the state of the Prophets so we see that Nuh (AS) when he called on his son to
join him on the boat, his son said: I’ll climb a mountain and that would save
me and he eventually drowned. Later, when the ark reached a safe place Nuh (AS)
said to Allah: Wa naada
Nuhur rabbahu faqaala rabbi innabni min ahli wa inna wa’dakal haqqu wa anta
ahkamul haakimeen And Nuh (AS)
called on to his Lord saying: “My Lord, My Son is of my family. Surely Your
promise is true, and You are the Best of those who judge.” In response Nuh was
told: “Surely, he is not of your family; verily he is of unrighteous conduct.
So do not ask of Me for that concerning which you have no knowledge. I admonish
you never to act like the ignorant ones.” In other words
Nuh (AS) was being told that the wisdom of your son being among those who
drowned, you don’t know about it so don’t ask about things that you don’t know.
Then Nuh (AS) thinking that he had done something wrong said he doesn’t want to
be from the ignorant ones. So this is the state of the Prophets. There are
things that they understand and there are other things which they submit and
surrender their will to Allah completely. In looking at the
wisdom of the legislation, there are two things that we need to understand: 1. We do not
believe that Allah needs His creation for any benefit or there is nothing that
we can do that can harm Allah in any way. Lauw
Anna Awwalakum wa Aakhirakum wa Insakum wa
Jinnakum kaana ‘Ala Athqa Qalbi Rajulinw
Wahidinm Minkum maa Zaada zaalika fi Mulki
Shaeeyan If the first
of you the last of you the men of you the jinn of you were as righteous as the
most righteous heart amongst you that would not add to Allah’s dominion in
anyway 2. We should
believe that Allah is absolutely wise in what He does The maslaha and
benefit that we are talking about can all of it be summarized or reduced to
what legal jurists have called al-Kulleeyatul Khams (The Five Universals).
These are the constants when it comes to the purpose of the Islamic Law at the
mundane level. 1.
Preservation of Religion (ad-Deen) The human beings
are religious creatures by nature and they tend to act out rituals. This is
something that the anthropologists recognize as well. Yet are those rituals set
by human beings themselves or are they derived by revelation. This is the
difference between Muslims and the rest of the societies. And I’m saying
Muslims in the ideal sense because many Muslims around the world have fallen
into rituals that are not from Allah. And Allah gave them no authority to do
that. Now some of them are going to go under what is known as the ‘urf or
custom in Islam but there are others that are rooted in ignorant traditions of
societies. So Islam is not against the custom of people, Islam honors people
and doesn’t say everybody has to become Arab. These are qualities and
characteristics of culture that Islam leaves within the realm of mubah, within
the realm of custom, within the realm of norm. But when a custom goes against
Islam, it is incumbent upon the people that when they accept Islam to
relinquish and abandon those cultures. When human beings
accept a religion they recognize that there is truth outside their experience
and when we submit to Allah and the Messenger we are submitting to the fact
that Allah knows best what is good for us and He communicated that to us
through the Messengers. So to understand the Shari’ah is to understand that this
is for the benefit of the human being. And the first and primary benefit is the
preservation of the true deen which is tawheed. The deen is tawheed; the
Shari’ah will differ. What tawheed does
is that it frees us from the yolk of creation. And a free man in Islam is not
what people in this culture think. People in this culture associate liberty
with freedom. Now the problem with this argument is that if a person is doing
what their nafs wants, they are not free, they are slaves. So no matter how
much freedom they give to people, if they are out chasing their personal
passions, if their passions take them to destruction, if their addictions take
them to destruction, they are not free, they are slaves, they’re just slaves to
the wrong thing. And this is why
‘Amr ibn Rab’ee, his great statement when he came to the court of the Kisra,
the great Persian. He was asked what is that you’re calling to and he replied: Ji’na
linukhrijal ‘ibad min ‘ibadatil ‘ibad ilaa ‘ibadati rabbil ‘ibad. Wa min jawril
adyaan ilaa ‘adlil Islam. Wa min dhiqid duniya ilaa sa’atid duniya wal-aakhirah We come to
take people away from worshipping creation to worshipping the Creator of the
creation; from the injustice of their religion to the justice of Islam; from
the narrowness of this world to the vastness of this world and the hereafter Another aspect
relevant to the preservation of deen is that of religious tolerance and unlike
other religions Islam gives people the right to worship the religion of their
choice. 2.
Preservation of Life (an-Nafs) The Shari’ah was
instituted to protect life. Min ajli
zaalika katabna ‘ala bani Israel annahu man qatala nafsan aw fasadin fil ardi
fakannama qatalannasa jameea’a. Wa man ahyaaha fa ka’an naasa jameea’a. Whoever takes
the life unjustly it is as if they have murdered the entire humanity and
whoever spares or saves a single life it is as if they have saved the entire
humanity. And this is
precisely why we have retribution for the person who murders another person as
Allah says: Wa lakum
fil qisaasi hayah You have in
retribution life And this
punishment essentially serves as a deterrent. In addition any kind of hukum or
legislation that will violate the rights of nafs, that will destroy life
unjustly and unfairly and disproportionately or that violates the rights of a
person for his or her physical safety is not allowed under Shari’ah; therefore
torture is prohibited, excessive punishment for a crime disproportionate to the
crime is prohibited, and so on and so forth. And therefore abortion when done
unnecessarily in Islamic law is prohibited. 3.
Preservation of Intellect (al-‘Aql) Islam prohibits
and removes any legislation that allows or demands us to do things that will
hurt the ability of a person to reason properly. Therefore any means that will
disengage the person from using his or her reason becomes either haram or at
least makruh depending on the harm it brings about. This is why it is
prohibited to take in intoxicants. In addition, it is also important for us to
fight these problems on the demand side instead of simply on the supply side.
So we try to put faith in people’s hearts so they don’t need any drugs, we try
to put contentment in their soul so they don’t need any alcohol. Then you can
have liquor store on each corner but there is no business. No one would need to
alter their state of being. Because they are with Allah in their hearts Allazeena
aamanu wa tatmainnu quloobuhum bizikrillah Those who
believe and their hearts find comfort in the remembrance of Allah But when we talk
about preserving the intellect, we have to move beyond drugs and alcohol. We
have to look at the educational system and make meaningful reforms to it
because as Muslims we are obligated by our religion to educate ourselves and
seek knowledge as the Messenger of Allah is narrated to have said: Talabul
ilmi fareedatun ‘ala kulli muslimin That seeking
of knowledge is mandatory on all Muslims 4.
Preservation of Progeny (an-Nasl) There is no
legislation allowed in Islam that could potentially destroy the preservation,
the continuation of this aspect of human life. In fact Islam promotes actions
and deeds which encourage facilitation of this aspect. So for instance this is
why fostering children is highly recommended in Islam. What’s prohibited in
Islam is tabannee since Islam does not allow for stealing the
child’s identity. So a person is not allowed to claim to be the biological
father or mother of someone whereas they are not or for them to keep hidden
from them their biological origin. Secondly, the reason this becomes so
important is that practically speaking when one does that, there is a
possibility of having brothers and sisters getting married to one another. Like what
happened in the 1950s with the African Americans, the idea of attaching an X to
the name. That was a statement. So they were saying that X is the mathematical
symbol of the unknown and what we are doing is rejecting our slave name, e.g.
Washington. An African American man whose last name is Washington didn’t come
over on the Mayflower. Why does he have an Anglo-Saxan name? Well it’s because
they were given the names of their masters. So we may not know of our actual
identity but at least we know we are not Washington. And this is why in
fornication the rules are so strong because through fornication breaks this
down. The Prophet is narrated to have said: When
fornication becomes prevalent in a society, then prepare yourselves for the
wrath of Allah. And the wrath as
some scholars say is in those children because they are filled with rage. We’re
now reaching 50% or past in terms of the number of children who are born out of
wedlock. And look at all the crimes, look at all the violence. There’s rage. So
Islam came to preserve this right and it does so through the prohibition of
fornication and through the guidelines of Shari’ah in proper marriage. And this
is why Islam recognizes any marriage outside Islam. Two people who become
Muslim do not have to renew a marital contract in Islam as long as that is
considered marriage in the custom of a people. But two people living together
with no responsibilities, Islam rejects that. And what’s unfortunate is how
marriages are portrayed in the media. Marriages are dull and boring, what’s
shown as exciting is illicit relationships. This is what we are seeing and this
is what we’re conditioned to believe. It’s interesting that now even
conservatives do not condemn adult premarital sex because everybody is doing
it. Another thing
that violates this universal is homosexuality, i.e. marriage between the same
sexes. What if everybody through their inclinations or by the power of
suggestion become involved in homosexuality? How are you going to procreate and
have continuity of existence? You can’t and you’re setting up the entire
society for destruction. 5.
Protection of Wealth (al-Maal) Islam protects
the wealth of people by prohibiting interest, hoarding, monopoly, speculation,
insider trading and even valueless currency. Islam rejects the Marxist notion
of “all property being theft” and being owned by the community; instead Islam
links private ownership with social responsibility. Also, when we talk about
wealth we do not talk about reckless capitalist greed because our principles
for preserving wealth also lead us to distribute wealth: Wa fi
Amwaalihim Haqqum Ma’lum. Lissaaili wal Mahrum That in their
wealth is a well defined right. For those who are forced to ask and those
deprived. So we see that
the Shari’ah in its approach to finding solutions and establishing norms for
society both at the individual and at the collective level intends to protect
and promote these five universals. http://khutbahs.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/objectives-of-islamic-law/ |
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