Sharia

Sharia (/ʃəˈriːə/; Arabic: شَرِيعَة, romanized: sharīʿah [ʃaˈriːʕa]) literally means way or law, in Islamic terminology it refers to an abstract immutable divine or religious law that forms part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. On the contrary, fiqh, which includes source criticism especially on hadiths and decree methods such as meaning and logical inference of the text, refers to the interpretations of Islamic scholars; ahkam, practical application side of sharia, in a sense, refers to the results reached by scholars with these sources and intellectual methods they use. Fatwas, on the other hand, consist of religious decisions made by muftis on specific issues.

Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence recognizes four sources of Sharia: the Quran, sunnah (a type of oral tradition narrated through a chain of transmission and recorded and classified as authentic hadith), ijma (may be understood as ijma al-ummah – a whole community consensus, or ijma al-aimmah – a consensus by religious authorities.) and analogical reasoning. Five prominent legal schools of Sunni Islam, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafiʽi, Hanbali and Zahiri, developed Sunni methodologies for deriving rulings from scriptural sources using a process known as ijtihad. Traditional jurisprudence distinguishes two principal branches of law, rituals and social dealings; subsections family law, relationships (commercial, political / administrative) and criminal law, in a wide range of topics. Its rulings are concerned with ethical standards as much as legal norms, assigning actions to one of five categories: mandatory, recommended, neutral, abhorred, and prohibited.

Over time, on the basis of mentioned studies legal schools have emerged, reflecting the preferences of particular societies and governments, as well as Islamic scholars or imams on theoretical and practical applications of laws and regulations. Although sharia is presented as a form of governance in addition to its other aspects, especially by the contemporary Islamist understanding, some researchers see the early history of Islam, which was also modelled and exalted by most Muslims; not a period when sharia was dominant, but a kind of "secular Arabic expansion".

According to human rights groups, some of the classical sharia practices involve serious violations of basic human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression, and the practices of countries governed by sharia are criticized. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR) ruled in several cases that Sharia is "incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy". Against this, "the concept of human rights" have been categorically excluded by the governments of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia by claiming that it belongs to secular and western values, and the Cairo conference by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation declares that human rights can only be respected if they are compatible with Islam.

In the 21st century, approaches to sharia in the Muslim world vary greatly and the role of Sharia has become an increasingly contested topic around the world. Beyond sectarian differences, fundamentalists advocate the complete and uncompromising implementation of "exact/pure sharia" without modifications, while modernists argue that it can/ should be brought into line with human rights and other contemporary issues such as democracy, minority rights, freedom of thought, women's rights and banking by new jurisprudences. In Muslim majority countries, traditional laws have been widely used with or changed by European models. Judicial procedures and legal education have been brought in line with European practice likewise. While the constitutions of most Muslim-majority states contain references to Sharia, its rules are largely retained only in family law. The Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought calls by Islamic movements for full implementation of Sharia, including hudud corporal punishments, such as stoning.