Abstract
In most religions, religious scholars are basically theologians. In contrast, learned men of religion in Islam are sacral jurists/faqihs (in Arabic: fuqaha), not theologians (mutakallimun). In medieval Islam a religious tradition of kalam (theology) was unfolded, but it never succeeded in becoming mainstream. The fiqh (Islamic sacral jurisprudence) possessed and continues to possess a monopoly over the interpretation of religious affairs in Islam. Despite the central place of law in Islam, I refer to the text of the Koran in which the term shari’a occurs only once (sura 45, verse 18) with an ethical, not a juridical meaning. Historically, I maintain that the shari’a, as a legal system, is a postKoranic construction. In the course of Islamic history, the shari’a became an integral part of the everyday culture of Muslims, but not yet politicised. Of course, there are some exceptional cases. It is, therefore, basic to refer to the shari’a to understand why most Muslims perceive their religious beliefs in terms of legal instructions. A pious Muslim is thus a lawful person.
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Notes
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More on this in the shari’a — chapter 8 in B. Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998, pp. 158–78.
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Tibi, B. (2005). Social Change and the Potential for Flexibility in Islamic Law: the Shari’a between Ethics and Politicisation. In: Islam between Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157_8
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