Shariah- The Sacred Law

Shariah: The Sacred Law

Introduction and Welcome

This is tonight's program, which is sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Northern California. My name is Maureen Hoban, and I'm chair of the subcommittee for this study series. The World Affairs Council, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization devoted to public education on international issues.

The council hosts 10 to 15 programs each month in San Francisco and the Bay Area on a wide range of topics. The topic of tonight's study group is the Sharia, and in my reading, the term means in ancient Arabic, going towards the source of water. In other words, towards that which assures life or renews energy.

It's also translated as the road, and the Sharia is a comprehensive set of rules covering political, criminal, personal, and private law, although it's not a comprehensive code or text, and it also is not a text or code that all Muslims agree on in every last piece.

Speaker Introduction

So for this evening, we have speaking tonight the Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson, and he is an Imam, or religious leader, with a mosque in the South Bay. He is fluent in Arabic, and he is a writer, lecturer, and teacher of Arabic and Islamic studies.

The Imam has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, Brigham Young University, Ohio State University, as well as Davis and San Jose State in our own area. He lectures also regularly in the Bay Area and throughout the United States. And by way of background, which I think is interesting, Imam Yusuf was born in Walla Walla, Washington, and was raised here in Marin County.

His family was Greek Orthodox, and he became a Muslim in 1977, and since that time, he has traveled extensively in the Muslim world. His academic background is that he has studied for five years at the Islamic Institute in Abu Dhabi, and has studied also with Islamic scholars, such as the President of the Supreme Court of Mauritania. And perhaps in his talk or his questions tonight, he will explain a little bit about the Supreme Court for us.

He also has continued his Quranic studies in Algeria. And of particular interest for tonight's topic is Sharia. He has studied Islamic jurisprudence with emphasis on Maliki jurisprudence under a West African scholar, and also in Medina, Saudi Arabia.

And therefore, I'd like to welcome Imam Yusuf. Thank you.

Opening Remarks: The Complexity of Sharia

So when the Muslim starts his talk, which is in the name of God, the merciful and compassionate, the first thing that I'd like to say right from the outset is that this is an extraordinarily complicated topic, in the sense that, I think probably one of the most interesting aspects of Islam is what we call the Sharia, or the sacred law of Islam. And it has immense depth to it, and to go into it in a half hour is a real challenge for me. I spent almost 10 years of my life studying the Sharia.

And I really, without any false humility here, say that I am cognitively a beginner in the subject, especially compared to some of the teachers that I've studied with. So, having said that, the next thing I'd like to mention is that my background, what was mentioned was that I was a Greek Orthodox. I grew up here in Marin County.

And I had two aspirations as a child. I think when people ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I was torn between becoming a priest, and the nice thing about Greek Orthodox is that they can get married as well, so it's not that much of a sacrifice. And the other thing was a lawyer.

And I think it was quite logical for me to end up becoming a Muslim and then becoming an imam, because an imam is, in a sense, a religious lawyer. In fact, just before coming here, about an hour before we left Santa Clara, I got a call from an Egyptian man who had a problem with a divorce between him and his wife. It was a legal question.

And then I gave him the answer, and then he asked me if his wife could call me as well. I can assure you that she wasn't in quite agreement with him.

The Etymology and Meaning of Sharia

So look at the term sharia. It's a beautiful word in Arabic, but the actual word comes from a root word in Arabic language. Like the Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Arabic is built on trilateral roots. In other words, roots that have three, usually three consonants in them. And from those roots, you get what is called in linguistics a semantic field.

So you have all of these cognates that come out of this original root. The root (شَرَعَ - shara'a) means to begin, which I think is really interesting, because human society, from its beginning, had to have some form of law or code in which people could act together with one another. So that idea is embedded in the language.

It also means to point a weapon at somebody, which is interesting, because law is really a way of defending yourself. If there aren't laws, then we don't have ways of establishing justice and these things that are necessary for human society to function. In the second form of the verb, so when you go from (شَرَعَ - shara'a), which is the first form, to (شَرَّعَ - sharra'a), where the middle radical has emphasis, it means to legislate, to bring something into law.

The word (شِرَاع - shiraa') means a sail. In other words, a boat that has a sail that you can sail along with. And that same word also means a tent.

So not only is it something that gives the human society that which enables it to move forward, it also is a protection. Like a tent is a shelter, or it's a protection from those things, those elements in nature that can be difficult. And then it also means, in this form that we're going to look at tonight (شَرِيعَة - shari'ah), means a source of water that never runs dry.

And that's important because in the Arabic culture, which is the language of the Arabs, sources of water are extremely important. And the idea of one that's inexhaustible is very interesting because Arab wells dry all the time in desert countries. And while also meaning, while it means a source of water itself, it also means the path to that source of water, which is also, I think, very interesting because it indicates that the means itself is also an end.

And this is important when you attempt to understand a fundamental difference between Islam and other traditions. That the law is extremely important, the sacred law of the Muslims, the Islamic law, which is sharia, is important because it's not seen simply as a means, you see, but it's also seen as a source itself of where you're going. So it has that dual aspect in it which is important.

The Four Sources of Islamic Law

So just to look basically at what Islamic law is, Islamic law is derived from four fundamental sources. And the first one is the Quran itself. And something really important here to say is that the Quran is really a matrix out of which laws are derived.

There are very few injunctions in the Quran that are specifically codified in the Islamic law. If you look at the laws dealing with criminal laws, penal codes, things like this, really the Quran does not deal with a lot of those, but it gives these deeply profound principles of law. And from those principles, laws are derived.

Islam is Not a Theocracy

So Islam is not a theocracy. In the sense that a theocracy is, like democracy is the rule of the people, demos is people, theocracy would be the rule of God. In the sense that there is no sacerdotal class, there is no religious priesthood that rules the Islamic country.

Islam gives the human being, and as a collective unity, the community, the right to live within parameters or guidelines. And those guidelines are what we call the Sharia. This is the Sharia.

So it is not a theocracy in the sense that the intellect of the human being is absolutely necessary for these laws to be understood and to be renewed in each generation. It's not simply this legalistic code that comes down, like Hammurabi's code, thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that, that type of code. Although there are some rules that are similar to that that we would find in the Ten Commandments.

Most of us would agree on, hopefully, on the Ten Commandments as a basis for a sound principle to live your life according to. And the Muslims certainly would not disagree with that. And all of those, the Ten Commandments, are in Islam, articulated, not in that order or not in the same way as they are in the Old Testament, but they're there.

The Role of Human Intellect and Interpretation

So the idea, though, that man, the human being, is given this book, and then he must or she must interact with the book and use the intellect to understand the book. And this is really interesting because Nietzsche, a very interesting character, said that there are no facts, only interpretations.

And this is something really that a modern society, our modern society has had to really deal with. You look at the intellectual movements in the last hundred years that have kind of literally dismantled or deconstructed traditional laws, traditional values, traditional cultures.

The Muslims actually understood that a long time ago, that there are quite literally interpretations. But I think where they would disagree is that there are valid interpretations and there are invalid interpretations. And that is why we find in the Islamic law there are these different ways of understanding things, but yet they are within certain guidelines or boundaries. You can't just simply make up a new version of Islam.

Just come along and say, well, people have misunderstood it and now I'm going to really tell you what it means. There's an idea in the Islamic teaching that it can be understood by the intellect, the intellect of human beings, and that that understanding is limited and there is a system of checks and balances through other intellects. So there's an idea of consensus, which is really important in Islamic law.

The Quran as the First Source

So this first idea of the Quran being the matrix of where these rules are derived from. If you look, there are six offenses that have specific punishments in the Quran. The first one is murder.

The next one is armed robbery, which is mentioned in the Quran with very severe punishment for armed robbery. High treason. False accusation of adultery.

And adultery itself. And then theft of guarded objects. So in other words, if somebody left their bike outside and didn't put a lock on it and somebody came along and took it, there's actually no punishment prescribed for that in the Quran.

That would be up to the judge himself to decide what warrants punishment there. He might punish the person for being stupid enough to leave it without a lock in San Francisco. So there's that idea there, that you have these six things, but still within those, there's flexibility. They're not fixed. Every case has to be looked at specifically.

The Sunnah as the Second Source

The next source where the law is derived from is what's called the Sunnah. And the Sunnah is from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and that is his explanation of the Quran. And the Sunnah is derived from, first of all, the most comprehensive meaning of Sunnah is anything that he did is considered his Sunnah. So quite literally, how he cut his beard, men will emulate that.

And it's seen as a good thing. It's not seen as an obligation to do that, but it's seen as a good thing to do. But more specifically, in legalistic understanding, the Sunnah is those injunctions, those prohibitions and those injunctions that the Prophet Muhammad has added on to the Quran.

Or those things that he has said that explain in greater detail things that are left more ambiguous in the Quran or more general. So the Sunnah oftentimes will take something in the Quran and give it particular examples or instances.

Ijma (Consensus) as the Third Source

And then the third thing is called (إِجْمَاع - Ijma'), which is consensus. And the consensus is the agreement of the scholars about a certain thing. And this is very important. Consensus is something really essential to understanding Islam as well. A group of scholars, if they in a certain time agree on something, it actually becomes legislated. It enters into legal coding in Islam.

So to give you a concrete example of that, the idea that in the Quran, it really doesn't deal specifically about dealing with non-Muslim countries. It talks, in general terms, about making treaties with people who are belligerent. And that if they incline towards peace, that you also should incline towards peace.

The early scholars took from that that you could actually have treaties with non-Muslim countries, with government representatives from them and then agree on whatever your conditions were and that would be part of the sacred law. And so that's an idea where the consensus comes in. And then once the consensus is held, it becomes part of the Islamic law until the end of time.

And that's based on a tradition where the Prophet said my ummah, the scholars of my ummah will never agree on something wrong. So if they agree, it has to be right. And so that's the idea.

Qiyas (Analogy) as the Fourth Source

And then the final thing is called juristic analogy or (قِيَاس - Qiyas). And that is that if there is not a precedent in the Quran, the Sunnah, or the Ijma' or the consensus, then we can use by analogy those things that are new, new questions that arise, we can make analogies and by analogy they can be brought or introduced into the law and become legislated. So an example of that, for instance, and it's very important that analogy is not misused.

And we can see obviously how it could be misused. And the most important thing is that first of all what is called the (عِلَّة - 'illah) or the reason, the wisdom behind the law has to be understood. If the wisdom is the same in these two instances, then you can use analogy. If the wisdom is not there, then you can't use analogy.

"I was only sent to perfect noble character."

So it has to do with charity, there are injunctions about taking care of poor people, about taking care of orphans, widows, needy people, these types of things.

And then the other one is that norms in the society conform to the ideal of the Quran. So for instance, at the risk of being politically incorrect, certain things in our culture that we have called normal lifestyles or alternative lifestyles and things like that, those types of things in Islamic society would not be tolerated in terms of their outward acceptance.

What people do inside their own homes, and it's a Quranic injunction that we're not allowed to spy on each other. What people do inside their homes is their own business. But the idea of bringing out things that are substandard and the standard that is set for the Islamic society is the Quran. Things that are substandard are not tolerated because according to the Islamic perspective, will lead to a kind of societal distortion where people begin to fall into a type of social moral anarchy where values and things become relativized and people really don't know what's right or what's wrong.

Conclusion of Presentation

So basically, this is a really basic, I've gone over my time but this is unfortunately really basic perspective of Islamic law and I have not done the subject justice but living in the age of soundbites. Maybe what we can do is give you a chance to expand a little bit by taking a few questions from the audience and let me say I'm going to repeat the questions because we're taping and that way the people listening will be able to hear.

Question and Answer Session

Question 1: Salman Rushdie and Blasphemy Laws

Question: I was wondering if the situation about Salman Rushdie comes from the Sharia and if so could you explain the rationale behind it.

Answer: The questioner asked whether the situation of Salman Rushdie comes from the Sharia and if so could you explain the reasoning. The first thing that I have to say about that is I think because I did read what Salman Rushdie wrote and there have been much worse things said in non-fictional form by other writers about Islam, about the Prophet of Islam and so there was so much politics involved in that situation unfortunately and I'll just say that outright.

In terms of Sharia it is forbidden by Islamic law to curse any sacred aspect of Islam publicly. It is forbidden to curse the Quran. It is forbidden to curse the Prophet Muhammad. These used to be called blasphemy laws in Europe and there are still blasphemy laws on the books in England and different places that it is forbidden openly to blaspheme against God or the Church or the Virgin Mary.

And so understanding it from our secular society is a little difficult because in societies where the sacred still is such an important part of life I think it becomes a little easier to deal with that but in an attempt not to waffle I will say that had he been in a Muslim country definitely he would have been tried. I believe even though it was supposedly an act of fiction there are elements in that book that are so offensive to Muslims, Jews and Christians that I think there probably would have been a trial had that book been published in a traditional Muslim country.

What I will say is that Khomeini had no, I do not believe by my understanding of the Islamic law had no right to issue that fatwa for a number of reasons. First of all there is no anarchy in Islam. If he is considered the prince of the believers or the head of the whole of Islam that is another thing but he is not. He was the spiritual head of state of the Iranian country and many Muslims did not accept him so he did not have a right to issue a fatwa like that.

In a Muslim country there is due process of law. People are accused of a crime and then they are taken to court and they have to explain themselves. So there is no basis for that in Islamic law to simply condemn a person to death without due process of law, absolutely not. And I would be backed up by any number of orthodox scholars on that point.

And the Egyptian scholars and this was not put out but the Egyptian scholars at Al-Azhar University and centers of Islamic learning they categorically rejected that fatwa as being groundless. And so it's important to understand that there is due process of law and nobody can take the law into their own hands.

I as a Muslim cannot go and kill somebody because an Imam gave me a fatwa, a legal ruling to do it. That is absolutely absurd. I mean you can see the whole basis of this thing is about order, is creating societal order and if suddenly everybody has the right to blow away anybody that offends their beliefs or faith, I mean what kind of society and order do you have?

The Example of the Prophet Discouraging Implementation of Punishment

One really beautiful example and I'll mention it right now of kind of a fundamental idea in Islamic law. There was a man during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who actually came to the Prophet and said I have committed adultery, I want to be punished. He is commanded by the Sharia to attempt to get them to recant, even if it was true.

So the idea of stoning the adulterer, which is often put in the media about the harshness or the barbarity of Islamic law, stoning the adulterer is really almost like a theoretical deterrent because it is so difficult.

You have to have, by Islamic law, four male, not female, male witnesses that witness penetration. It would have to be a gross act of lewdness in the middle of the plaza here in Union Square or something before you actually get the thing implemented. And the other thing is, if they see it, and then they go and tell, if one of their stories is found to have a flaw in it, they are flogged for accusing the people of adultery.

And the person can deny it. The whole point of that is an extremely humane act.

Question 2: Differences Between Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence

Question: With other schools of law, such as the Hanbali, and then possibly if you could differentiate between applications of the Sharia in different countries of the Muslim world.

Answer: A two-part question. First of all, how do you differentiate between the Maliki and other schools of law jurisprudence? And then secondly, could you comment on the application of the schools in various countries?

She's obviously referring to these different schools or legalistic schools in Islam. And in what's called the Sunni Islam, which is probably about 85% of the Muslim world, there are four schools that are accepted orthodox schools that nobody rejects.

It's the Maliki school, the Hanafi school, the Shafi'i school, and the Hanbali school. Of the four schools, two of them have had extremely long periods where they were actually the dominant legalistic schools of Islamic empires. The Hanafi school was the school of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the school of the Umayyad and Abbasid period.

So it is really the broadest of all the schools and has the most legalistic expansion. The second one is the Maliki school that ruled most of Africa and Spain. Muslim Spain was under the Maliki.

The difference is, and I think this is really beautiful about the Islamic law, is that, getting back to that thing about there not being facts, only interpretations, is that the Prophet Muhammad actually allowed for different interpretations of things. I think the point of that, he said, I was sent with the forgiving the (حنيفية - Hanifiyyah), the forgiving way. The way of (سمح - samaha) has the idea of tolerance, you know (سمح - samih) is a tolerant one.

And so it really teaches the idea of tolerance, of tolerating other juristic opinions, and that there is not simply one fixed way. And that is why these schools were accepted. And the Prophet Muhammad allowed for different understandings and encouraged them amongst his companions, as long as they were based on these sound, you know, not ridiculous type of situations.

So the difference, right now there is no country on earth practicing Islamic law, I guarantee you. And I include Saudi Arabia in that. The Hanbali school that you are referring to is probably of the four the strictest, it's the most literalist, and it has had a very limited sphere of influence in Islamic history.

All the Muslims considered Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the school, to be an acceptable imam, absolutely, and he was a very pious and brilliant man. But his school did not have a large following, ever, until the Saudi Arabian government took it on as the official kind of school. The reason I'm saying Saudi Arabia, there are elements of the school that are being practiced.

But the most fundamental law of Islam is, in Roman law, we have the plebeian and the patrician rules, right? You have laws for the slave class and the poor people, and then you have laws for the full citizens of Rome. The

Prophet Muhammad said, the ways of the ignorant people before us were that they applied their laws to the poor people, and yet the people of power could avoid the application of punishment. Which is something for everybody in Washington to really seriously consider.

And in corporate America, I contend that Leona Helmsley was only punished because she actually spilled the beans when she said only little people pay taxes. That's an unspoken truth.

So, you have these differences, and they're accepted. Just to give you a really kind of basic example of a difference of opinion, Imam Shafi'i held that (كفاءة - kafa'ah) which is in marriage, the two partners should be of similar status. In other words, if the woman's rich, the husband should be rich. The idea behind it is, in order for there to be a long survival of the marriage, they have to have similar backgrounds.

And he also allowed for, if a person was Arab, and a non-Arab asked for his daughter, that that was an acceptable reason why he should not want her to marry him, because he wouldn't want, it's not for racism, it's really important to see the difference. It has to do with social background, with culture, and different, those type of things. That's what he was looking at, because the Quran is very clear about that there's no racism.

Imam Malik's opinion was that, absolutely not. He didn't agree with that at all. He said, the Quran says:

"The noblest of you, in God's eyes, are the most conscientious."

And so conscientiousness should be the first thing that should be considered in marriage. So, those are examples of differences. And then you get into differences that the Muslims consider, not irrelevant, but just really not important, like the way you hold your hands in the prayer.

One school holds them here, one holds them there. Some keep them at their side. And then the fifth school is the Ja'fari school, which is followed in Iran, which is the fifth school of Islam.

So those are the different schools. They agree about 80% of the time, and they disagree about 20% of the time. I'm being very crude, I mean, statistical type right now.

Question 3: Women as Leaders and Witnesses in Islam

Question: I have two questions also. First is, what does Islam say about women leaders, like in Pakistan or Turkey or Bangladesh? Also, the Quran says that a woman's witness is equal to, two women's witness equals to one man. And then also some people argue that's only in commercial transaction. But then my question is, that's possibly because women were less educated at that time period, but that also undermines Islamic leaders like Khadija and Aisha and Zainab and so forth.

Answer: I believe the question was, could you explain the position of Islam on women leaders, and then how does that interface with the Islamic position that two women's witness is the same as one man's witness,

particularly in a commercial context, which would then reflect on the political context. I'm going to take the second part first.

Women's Testimony in Islamic Law

The Quran does say in the chapter, which is termed The Cow, that a woman's witness is equivalent, two women are equivalent to one man in witnessing. Now this, unfortunately, has been looked upon by a lot of people saying, well that means women equal half men. Now another aspect which adds insult to injury for certain people is that a woman gets half the inheritance of a male person.

To look at that within the context of Islam, and it's one of the things I hate about dealing with things superficially, is that you deal with things superficially. But things can be taken out of context. Jesus said, whoever of you doesn't have a sword, let him go and buy a sword. I only came to bring war into the world, to set father against brother. I mean, you can take those out of context, right, and say, well hey, this is a real warmonger.

And yet, obviously we know that those aren't what he was talking about. So, with women's testimony, first of all, we don't see a lot of women lining up to be on jury duty. I mean, it's not like everybody wants to go out and bear witness against everybody else.

The idea there is that witnessing is really not a pleasant social function, that you have to bear witness against people or to witness things. It is actually a kind of burden, in fact. And it is seen as that.

There are many examples in Islamic law where women are actually relieved of social responsibilities because of the nature of raising a family, having to deal with those types of situations. So, it is seen by Sharia as easing the burden of women. And the proof of this, and I hope you catch this argument because it's a beautiful example of this.

In Islamic law, it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to transmit a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad if she is a sound and reliable source. And she does not need two people, another person to say that I heard that from the Prophet Muhammad. So, Aisha, the wife of the Prophet, if she transmits a saying of the Prophet, she is considered an absolutely 100% reliable source.

She does not have to have two witnesses to say that she heard it from the Prophet. And according to any Muslim, and according to Islamic law, it is infinitely more important to preserve the prophetic tradition than it is to bear witness whether so-and-so lent you $50 or something. I mean, that is insignificant compared to the responsibility of bearing witness to the truth itself.

So, a woman's witness is absolutely 100% equal to a man in religious doctrine. And that is much more important by Islamic standards. Also, in things that pertain to women's areas, such as wet nursing, one woman is absolutely sufficient, whereas two men would be needed.

Women and Inheritance Rights

Now, concerning the distribution of wealth, the men have responsibilities that women do not have in wealth. In other words, if I inherit my father's wealth with my sister, I will get two shares and I will get twice as much as she will get.

I have by Islamic law a responsibility to spend my money on my family and on my near relatives. A woman does not. All of that money is hers. She can do with it whatever she wants. And that is the reason quite clearly articulated in Islamic law. Nobody has ever said in 1400 years that the reason is because she's worth half of what a man is.

No, it is quite clear in Islamic law that it is because she does not have social financial responsibility. The Prophet Muhammad was asked about a woman who spends on her husband. Because by Quran, a man has to

support the wife.

By Quranic law. And if she doesn't want to work, she does not have to work. He cannot force her to work.

That is forbidden in Islamic law. If she wants to work, that's another thing. But if she doesn't want to work, she does not have to.

Now, he was asked, what about if a woman spends on her husband? She's wealthy and she supports him. He said she will get twice the reward of what he would get. Now, there's another example of a woman getting twice as much as a man.

So, these things have to be understood in a very sophisticated context. They can't simply be taken out and said, oh, this is an obvious example of oppressing women or women not being equal. Not at all. And that has never been articulated by Islamic scholars in 1400 years.

I've read a lot of books by people from anywhere from the first century up until now. And I've never seen that anywhere said. And it's just a real misunderstanding.

Women as Heads of State

Now, about women being heads of state. The general idea in the Muslim world, and it's really interesting that, you know, women are so oppressed in the Muslim world. Why have they got, I think, now three female heads of state and we have yet to have a female head of state? I mean, I think that's kind of interesting.

Maybe secularism has helped those women become heads of state. But in the Islamic world, there's a difference of opinion there. During his lifetime, the Prophet appointed a woman as the head of what would now be called quality control.

Because in the Islamic world, there's an actual office called (حسبة - Hisbah), where people have to go in and check the market and check that milk's not being watered down with water or that people aren't cheating on selling things to people that have faults in them. For instance, they used to, if they laid out fruit, they would actually go in and pull the fruit off and make sure the fruit under it was the same as the fruit on top, right? If you go buy strawberries today, you get these big giant ones on top and all the little ones on the bottom. So it's still the same game.

So there is, I think the majority of scholars do not feel that a woman should be the absolute head of state. That is the majority opinion. That she should not be the absolute head of state, that it should be a male.

Women traditionally have, in Islamic societies, we have a great deal of female scholars in Islamic history. I mean, it's nowhere near the number of male scholars, but it's certainly considerably greater than the number of female scholars that we have had in Western history because we really don't have very many that we can even mention.

Question 4: Separation of Church and State and Appeals System

Question: Since there is no real separation between church and state in Muslim societies, and it seems to me there is anarchy of a sense in all societies, in all religions and so forth, because we do not follow the rules of the church. What is the system within the Muslim world of appealing decisions and is there anything comparable to entire secular legal systems? Like a court of appeals.

Answer: The question was, since there is no separation between church and state in the Islamic world, is there a system of appeals for decisions that are made particularly in the judicial setting? I think it's difficult, I don't like the idea that there is no separation between church and state because, first, there is no church, which is really important to understand about Islam.

I know what you mean by it, but there is no monolithic body like the Pope in the Catholic Church who is infallible in his spiritual decisions according to the Catholic doctrine. So if he says abortion is forbidden, there is nobody that can come along in the Catholic Church and say no, it's not. That is not true in the Islamic system at all.

There is no final authority unless it is clearly, without any ambiguity, spelled out in the Quran or in the Hadith. And really there are not that many things that are clearly spelled out because it allows human beings in each age to kind of renew this understanding. So that idea that there is no separation, I would say of the secular and the sacred, that's the difference, is that everything is considered sacred in Islam.

Marriage is sacred, even though it's not a sacrament like it is, say, in the Catholic Church, but it's a sacred bond between two people.

The Judicial System and Appeals

In the court system, it's based on judges. There are judges. There is no jury system. And there is definitely a ruling that can be appealed, and that would mean bringing other judges in to look at it if the person feels that he has been unfairly judged against. And there is a system of appeals that does take place.

But it definitely is a system based on judging. And a judge, there are two people within the judicial system. The first is called a (قاضي - qadi), who is a judge, and the second one is called a (مفتي - mufti).

And I think people have heard that term, mufti. And (الفتوى - al-fatwa) is the result of whatever the mufti said.

And they used to say in England, let's go take a shufti at the mufti. It's kind of a cockney phrase, because these people were going during the colonial period, and shuf means look.

So the mufti is somebody that gives legal judgment about both internal things. So you go to a mufti and ask him, you know, I did this, or this happened to me, or this. And he'll give you a judgment that has to do with your personal behavior.

But the qadi is the one, the judge, he judges between people. And in Islamic law, marriage counselors are judges. It's really interesting. I spent, when I was in the United Arab Emirates, I worked as a volunteer in an Islamic court there, because I wanted to learn the judicial system. And one of my teachers was the head judge there.

And I used to sit in on these marriage cases, and it was really fascinating to watch it, because women would go and complain. It was usually women complaining. But I mean, that's something really important to understand about the legal system, is that women have the right to complain to judges, and judges can enforce things and make sure that they're being done, and she has recourse to that.

It's really important, because a lot of women just don't have legal recourse. I mean, we've only recently kind of become aware of this, that there are all these women being abused, and this is something that's been going on for 1,400 years in the Islamic legal system, is that women have had recourse to these judges to go and complain about their husband.

I once saw an Egyptian woman, and her husband was telling the judge his side of the story, and she held back and smacked him right in the jaw, right in front of this judge. And he just got up and said, you see what I'm living with? I don't need any more evidence.

Question: You're not allowed to do that? The judges are male, absolutely.

Follow-up Question: Aren't there any female judges elected?

Answer: They're not, yeah, they're not elected. There's no election of judges. They're appointed by the government. And the mufti is different, because he is usually generally free from the government. The government will have muftis.

Right now in the Muslim world, most of the Muslims don't accept the authority, obviously, of these governments now, because they're not practicing Islam. And so the judges are usually seen as kind of stooges for the government.

The Burden of Being a Judge

And another interesting tradition, the Prophet Muhammad said that the appointed judge is like one slaughtered without a knife. And he said that there are three judges. Two of them are in the hellfire, and one of them is in paradise.

And he said, as for the two in hellfire, the one that doesn't know and judges anyway out of ignorance and takes himself to the fire, the one that knows and judges against what he knows and because of that takes himself to the hellfire, and the one who knows and judges according to what he knows and takes himself to the garden.

And so traditionally Muslims fled from being judges. It really was something. All of these four imams that were mentioned, Malik, Shafi'i, Abu Hanifa, and Ibn Hanbal, they were all appointed at one point in their careers as

judges, and they absolutely refused.

And that has been a traditional position. And this gets back again to one of the really important aspects of Islamic law. Abu Hanifa, the Persian scholar, who said a beautiful thing in the 8th century. He said that laws are only necessary in the absence of love.

That we really have no concept of, I mean, with your family, do you really want justice against your parents?

They say, the grandparents say that grandchildren are a parent's revenge. So that's the idea, that hopefully things should be prevented before they get to the judge.

Mediation Before Litigation

And the reason in Islam, the Quran says very clearly that if a wife and a husband disagree, let her bring somebody from her family as an arbitrator and let him bring somebody from his family as an arbitrator. And that is the first, that's the first beginning of it. It shouldn't get to the judge like a last stage.

The first stage is that she brings somebody from her family, and it says quite clearly from her family, in other words, the husband can't pick it. She chooses who she wants to represent her.

So, you know, I think that's a really important aspect of Islamic law, is that the law is kind of a last resort. That people should try to solve their problems without having to have recourse to some legal system. And I think the Prophet definitely encouraged that.

And there's a story of he appointed a man judge in Yemen, and he was there for six months and he didn't have one case. And the Prophet, he smiled about that and thought that things are working, right? In other words, that people don't need the law because love is there and because people have a sense of what is right.

Closing Remarks

So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Imam.

I think there were probably some points there that maybe we'd like to take back to American society and our judicial system. At this point, we're going to break into two groups. Everyone should have a green or a blue dot on their name tag.

The blue group is on this side, and the green group is on this side, and we'll be putting a wall down the center. Thank you very much. It's a great attendance. We appreciate everyone.