The Concept of Sharī ‘a Revisited

Sharī‘a is considered as a central concept in Islam. The wide range of Islamic aspects covered by this term has led some scholars to argue that Sharī‘a and Islam have become synonymous terms. The terminological obscurity is further increased by the dual nature of Sharī‘a, where divine and mundane dimensions are both present. Moreover, the implications of this obscurity are observable in the ongoing debates about the changeability of Sharī‘a. Therefore, the current study attempted to demystify how a central concept in Islam, such as Sharī‘a, is so vaguely defined. It also examined different factors that contributed to this vagueness, for instance, terminology, history, and politics. However, the focus of the study remained most importantly on the dual nature of Sharī‘a, stemming from a desideratum for divinity and the inevitability of human agency. This obscurity has practical implications, for instance, the classification of banks interest as riba (usury). However, a more general implication is the degree of flexibility in Sharī‘a, since changeability is proportional to the degree of divinity. Muslims need to have a clearer idea of what Sharī‘a is, to have substantial relevance in modern times.


Introduction
One of the major problems that Muslims have been wrestling with for centuries is the dual nature of Sharī'a, a duality that has contributed and still contributes, to the obscurity of the concept.This duality takes different forms.For one, Sharī'a is constituted of sources that Muslims consider as divine.For instance, Qur'ān is the word of Allah, Sunna refers to the divinely inspired traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad (SAW), and Ijma (consensus) which Muslims consider to be divinely sanctioned.However, the Qur'ān and Sunna, to be used as religious sources of moral guidance and law, must undergo a process of human interpretation that cannot claim divinity.
Epistemologically, Sharī'a is dichotomized into certain and probable (qatʿi and zanni) and this knowledge is concerned with two things, that is, authenticity concerning sources and the understanding of the Divine Will.In the domain of rules (ahkām), this dichotomy also takes the form of unchangeable and changeable (thabit and mutaghayyir) to correspond, mostly, to certain/probable, respectively.This multidimensional nature of Sharī'a complicates how it is conceived and, most importantly, how it is made to function in a society.
The term 'Sharī'a' does not seem to refer to anything concrete, however, it has different shades of meanings that can only be defined by context.It is mostly agreed that Qur'ān and Sunnah are at least part of Sharī'a and this suffices in giving Sharī'a some degree of divinity.Introducing the products of ijtihād, such as fiqh, usūl, or law, adds interpretation to revelation under the umbrella of Sharī'a.Hence, it gives Sharī'a a mundane dimension.Considering how Sharī'a's role in a society is perceived, this duality becomes problematic.In the context of the modern nation-state, for instance, stipulating Sharī'a to be the (or a) source of legislation (tashriʿ) implicitly refers it to the divine Sharī'a; utilizing all the force and reverence this reference brings to the constitution and the law.The law, thus, becomes the legitimate son of this divine source, carrying, thereby, a degree of sacredness and reverence of its origin.The state law (qanūn) which has been referred to here, not fiqh,

Sharī'a as Islamic Law, a Problem of Definition
There are certain common approaches to define Sharī'a or to explain what it means among modern writers. 2 One such approach is defining/explaining Sharī'a by negation, that is, identifying what Sharī'a does NOT mean.This is usually coupled with a distinction approach where Sharī'a is distinguished from other concepts, such as fiqh or tashrīʿ (legislation).For instance, Muhammad Saʿīd al-ʿAshmawi, an Egyptian lawyer and Judge, rejects that Sharī'a in its linguistic or Qur'ānic meaning refers to legislation or law.He objects to the use of the word Sharī'a to mean all the rulings in Islam, whether they appeared in the Qur'ān, Sunna, Ijmaʿ, or in the exegeses; a process, he argues, similar to what happened in Judaism. 3 Similarly, Hassan al-Turabi, a Sudanese political Islamist and thinker, argues that Sharī'a is not the same as tashrīʿ (legislation), for tashrīʿ is the human interpretation and enacting of the divine Sharī'a, which does not provide detailed rulings. 4Similar arguments were made by Kamali who distinguished, hesitantly, between Sharī'a and fiqh.He argued that "fiqh is legal science and can be used synonymously with Sharī'a, but they are different in that Sharī'a is closely identified with divine revelation, fiqh is developed by the jurists.The path of Sharī'a is laid down by God and His messenger; the edifice of fiqh is erected by human endeavour". 5The same line of argument was taken by Burhan Ghulioun, a Syrian/French academic, who stressed that it is necessary to distinguish between Sharī'a as a religion attributed to Allah and Sharī'a as a juristic product attributed to the jurist. 6The common idea in the examples above is the assertion to distinguish between the divine and the mundane.The nomenclature may differ; where some would consider 'Sharī'a' to be an all-encompassing rubric, others may prefer to distinguish between 'Sharī'a ' and 'fiqh' or 'tashrīʿ.However, the objective is clear; they want to contain what is considered divine, hence immune from human interference in Sharī'a as much as possible in the abstract, and distinguish it from the mundane Sharī'a which readily deals with lifes ever -changing details without trespassing on Gods domain.However, the clear and persistent hurdle to this objective is the question of where to draw the line and who can decide on this subtle, yet paramount, distinction.
This problem is manifested in the arguments presented by Qaradawi, who uses the same approach of distinguishing between Sharī'a and fiqh but to different conclusions.Qaradawi vehemently rejects the notion of the dispensability of fiqh, arguing that it would lead to the rejection of Sharī'a as a whole.He rejects the distinction between Sharī'a as a divine revelation and fiqh as a positive law, since fiqh is based on divine revelation, and the accepted way to renovate (tajdeed) fiqh is by juristic effort (ijtihād) in the light of the hermetic texts (nusūs muḥkama). 7The question of what counts as a hermetic text or how ijtihād can use it would, once again, introduce the problem of authority: who decides and why.This renders the negation/distinction approach insufficient to provide concrete meaning or definition to 'Sharī'a.
Another approach to define/explain Sharī'a is by explaining its function.According to Ghulioun, Sharī'a is the constitution that defines the main values and principles for the life of the community. 8Kamali expands on Ghulioun's idea and says that Sharī'a "regulates legal rights and obligations but also non-legal matters and provides moral guidance for human conduct in general.Sharī'a provides an individual with a code of reference consisting of moral, legal, and cultural values that can be reassuring and purposeful."9Turabi, on the other hand, focused on tashrīʿ rather than Sharī'a.For him, Sharī'a was a divine providence, and it's function was to provide guidance (hawādi) to people; any legislative process should fall under the rubric of tashrīʿ.10Qaradawi once again was keen to maintain the strong bond between Sharī'a and fiqh, arguing that Sharī'a 's function, unlike the law, was not only to regulate the matters of society but to create good individuals, a good society, and a good state.Sharī'a, according to him was introduced to regulate ethics, unlike the Roman law that came to regulate customs.Qaradawi was unapologetic about his idea of marrying Sharī'a and fiqh to give Sharī'a, henceforth, complete authority over Muslims lives.Ghulioun and Turabi seem ed to be conscious of the subtle conflict between the divinity of Sharī'a and the unavoidable human involvement in deducing its rulings.Therefore, they attempted in their descriptions of Sharī'a's function to limit its divine sphere and raise it.However, this conflict did not seem to trouble Qaradawi and to some extent Kamali, where they acknowledged the need for Muslims to be engaged in renovating Sharī'a to respond to the changing issues.Yet, they seemed to maintain divine authority for Sharī'a at the same time with no clear demarcation between the two domains.
Finally, some writers attempted to define/explain Sharī'a by describing it in some generic terms.Some descriptions were, to some extent, rhetoric in nature.For instance, the description by Ghulioun, who explained Sharī'a as "obedience to Allah", "brotherly solidarity and cooperation" and "the method from which many and different rulings can be taken." 11Similarly, Ashmawi says that Sharī'a is an "interaction with life…principles for realistic life,"12 "the method of faith and righteousness" 13 , and that the Sharī'a of Muḥammad (SAW) was mercy as opposed to Jesuss love and Muses ' 'truth.' 14 Hallaq argued that "the Sharī'a defined, in good part (and together with Sufism), paradigmatic cultural knowledge.Enmeshed with local customs, moral values, and social practices, it was a way of life." 15The only attempt, among the writers discussed above, to provide a definition in the juristic method 'al-ḥadd' for Sharī'a was Qaradawi's.He defined it as "ordinances decreed from Allah that are established by [textual] evidence from Holy Qur'ān and Sunna and what stems from them of Ijmaʿ and Qiyas." 16What is meant by 'al-ḥadd' is a definition that meets the criteria set by al-Ghazali and other jurists, that is, to describe the concept by all its unique essentials, so that it includes those attributes belonging to it and simultaneously excludes those that do not. 17ny attempt to define Sharī'a in this concise manner would be faced with the problem of drawing clear lines between the divine and the mundane in Sharī'a while maintaining some amount of both.This distinction should allow for Sharī'a to be timeless and its efficiency not bound by places or people, a task that is, despite Qaradawi's efforts, logically problematic for epistemological reasons. 18Coulson's definition of Sharī'a may be in line with this argument.He states that Sharī'a "is a comprehensive scheme of human behaviour which derives from the one ultimate authority of the will of Allah.So, the dividing line between law and morality is by no means clear." 19Coulson's notion of morality and law can be equated, with little reservation, with peoples' notion of divine and mundane, respectively.If Sharī'a is to remain active in a society, it must be through human agency; this would immediately entail a question of authority: who has the authority to decide what Sharī'a says?This applies whether the matter in question was a minor one of, for instance, how to pray, or a methodological matter concerning the structure of Sharī'a and how it should work.The problem of presumption is soluble only by denying any claim to divinity for one's opinion which would ultimately deprive Sharī'a of its divinity as Qaradawi cautioned.In this sense, the only way to attain what the majority of Muslims have now come to expect from Sharī'a is to maintain its conceptual obscurity.It does not suggest that this obscurity is necessarily intentional, however, it shows that precision and firm definiteness will cost Sharī'a either its divinity or its efficacy. 20harī'a is usually considered to be a wider concept than law in a strict sense.The law according to the Oxford dictionary is "the whole system of rules that everyone in a country or society must obey".However, Sharī'a is considered, almost unanimously, higher than just law because it involves, besides regulating one's relation to society (in the view of many), regulating one's relation to God.In the words of Schacht "Islamic law is part of a system of Islamic duties blended with non-legal elements"; 21 'system of Islamic duties' is what is now commonly known as Sharī'a.To understand how Sharī'a as a concept has mutated in the imagination of Muslims to become Islamic law, it is useful to examine three different but related factors which are as follows:

Terminology
Sharī'a literally means 'path to water' or just 'the path.' 22 The terms that were mostly used pertaining to the rulings and injunctions, deduced from revealed sources were, fiqh and aḥkām.Therefore, for Sharī'a to become Islamic law, it had to go through fiqh first.However, fiqh had two elements, that is, it regulated one's relationship to society (Mu ͑ amalāt) and to God ( ͑ ibadat).The term 'fiqh' was reduced to the domain of the latter, while the term 'Sharī'a' was mostly used in a political sense to refer to the former as 'the law.' Ashmawi contended that fiqh which is "mistakenly called Sharī'a is, in fact, people's legislation for people." 23He argued that there is a considerable difference between Sharī'a, which one can hypothetically accept to be the decrees in the revealed sources and fiqh which is the collection of opinions produced by Muslim jurists, scholars and lawyers. 24Nevertheless, the problem that Ashmawi did not address thoroughly here, is that people who call for the implementation of Sharī'a as law, like Qaradawi, while initially accepting the distinction between Sharī'a and fiqh as presented by Ashmawi, fuse them together.This fusion is made on the grounds that jurists who produce fiqh opinions can only do so by referring to the revealed sources, hence, tying the mundane with the divine.Ashmawi rejected this approach without clearly explaining how to distinguish between Sharī'a and fiqh, particularly in the context of law.
Ashmawi's arguments also comprise an objection to the equating of fiqh with law.He sees no problem with fiqh, in its Mu ͑ amalat part, being a source of law; the problem for him is that a static and historic fiqh cannot produce law for all times. 25This view is shared by all the authors mentioned above and is the subject of an ongoing debate on the reformation of usul al-fiqh.However, with regards to the two terms being synonymous, they are not; for fiqh created what became known as Islamic law. 26While, there is no serious objection to the principle of associating fiqh and law in the form of whole and part, the objection will arise with regards to the details: how can fiqh constantly produce law for the betterment of society?
Ghulioun describes the mutation of the concept of Sharī'a as shifting from simply meaning obedience and submission to Allah, to mean an Islamic communion (millah).This shift happened as a result of the increasing aspirations of Muslims to form their independent political self.Moreover, as a result of the emergence of the nation-state, the concept of Sharī'a was 'reduced' to simply mean 'the law' that is deduced from Islamic values and decrees. 27Nonetheless, the mutation of Sharī'a is not a 'reduction' as Ghulioun puts it, it is, rather, a change of form and shape and not a change in essence (an essence that is still not clear but is ever-present).In other words, Sharī'a never ceased to be regarded as a religion, fiqh, or Islamic law.However, the perception of Sharī'a seems to focus on a particular aspect of it depending on the context; and under the pressures of the modern state, the focus on law is prevalent.Authors who attempt to define or explain Sharī'a, do not tend to confine it to law, however, usually object to this confinement.In order for Sharī'a to go from being conceived as 'the path' or 'religion' to being conceived as 'the law,' it underwent a long historical process.To understand this process, the relationship between Sharī'a and kanūn needs to be examined.'Kanūn' is the modern Arabic equivalent to 'law.' 28 It was arguably adopted into Arabic with the continuation of the pre-Islamic tax system after the Muslim conquest of Egypt and Syria. 29It then also acquired the notion of state law.Matters that needed to be regulated by the state/ruler, for instance, tax, administrative law, and penal law were considered to be within the framework of Sharī'a until Imam Shafiʿi wrote a book on the principles of jurisprudence 'al-Risala.'This book narrowed the framework of Sharī'a and new administrative regulations were considered outside of the Sharī'a framework; they became the province of a new 'state law.'This created an independent body of law that steadily developed under the authority of the ruler; a law that was increasingly taking charge of matters of public life that Sharī'a was thought to be silent on.This development was legitimized earlier by scholars of Sharī'a (fuqahāʾ; sing.faqih) such as al-Mawardi (d.463/1072) in his book 'al-Aḥkḥām al-Sulṭanīyya' (The Ordinances of Government). 30During the time period of the Ottoman Empire, the tension between Sharī'a and state law (now officially called kanūn) was exacerbated and the prevalence of one over the other depended sometimes on the Sultan. 31The disputations that arose in Muslim societies while entering the path of modernization concentrated on the question of the relationship between Sharī'a and kanūn.European laws started to find their way into the Ottoman legal system in the form of kawanīn (sing.kanūn) exacerbating, thus, the tension between Sharī'a and kanūn further. 32The effect of European laws was made all the more evident during colonial times when a whole or part of English and French law was promulgated throughout the Muslim world. 33According to Hallaq, "between the early years of the nineteenth century and the second decade of the twentieth century, the Sharī'a, which had dominated the legal scene for over a millennium in the central lands of Islam, and for centuries in other regions, was largely reduced in scope of application to the area of personal status, including child custody, inheritance, gifts and, to some extent, waqf." 34However, the expansion of kanūn into the domains of Sharī'a continued.Turkey abandoned Sharī'a completely in favour of the Swiss civil code in 1923. 35Tunisia introduced the Law of Personal Status, which prohibited polygamy in 1957, 36 notwithstanding its permission in Sharī'a.Additionally, the Muslim family laws Ordinance was introduced in Pakistan in 1961 which changed the Sharī'a inheritance system. 37structure, that is, its bottom-up, society-driven method, and resorted to the top-down, state-imposed method; what Hallaq calls the "contaminating influence of the state".38

Politics
When the Muslim societies gained their independence, they were on a quest to affirm the Islamic identity, that was, to them, distorted by colonialism.The most significant change brought about by the colonial powers to the Muslim world was the nation-state.While, some sought to abolish the nation-state altogether and return to the Caliphate as an emblem of their Islamic identity; the more realistic quest was to Islamize the nation-state.The main feature of the modern state that Islam could significantly change was law, where a long history of tension between Sharī'a and law had already taken place and law had prevailed, particularly under the colonialists and post-colonial secular governments.In other words, the Islamization of the state could be achieved by gaining back for Sharī'a what was thought to have been lost to law.
An example for this is, the argument Qaradawi makes for the case of 'Dawlat al-Islam' (the state of Islam).He argues that the Islamic state is a civil state like all other civil states, only distinguished by making the Islamic Sharī'a its ultimate reference. 39He stresses his point by arguing that an Islamic state is not a theocratic state, it is governed by a civilian who is freely chosen by the people. 40Ashmawi, on the other hand, raises the question of what is meant by an 'Islamic government' (in this context it is the same as the state).He argues that it generally means a government that implements Sharī'a, which for him, means the implementation of a political and legal system that developed in history; in short, the legalization of fiqh. 41Ghulioun expands slightly on this but to the same conclusion, arguing that an 'Islamic state' could be understood in terms of its populous structure, the orientation and political program of its government, or, and this is the case in point, its paradigm for power.In this latter case, the main characteristic of an Islamic state is the adoption of Sharī'a, in its classical fiqh sense, as the sole source of civil legislation. 42hus, the 'implementation of Sharī'a became an integral part of the political debate in the Muslim world.Moreover, it became the principal agenda of the Islamists and one thing that sets them apart from their political rivals.However, the implementation of Sharī'a as a political program can only be significantly manifested in the form of law, and in particular, the implementation of hudūd (limits) and the prohibition of riba; both of which are among the most controversial issues in Sharī'a in modern time.

Divinity from Sources, An Epistemological Problem
The divinity of Sharī'a was not a matter of dispute among most scholars and thinkers of Islamic jurisprudence; they seemed to agree that there is a domain of Sharī'a which is based purely on the divine sources and, thus itself is a divine domain.This domain was beyond change for it is the equivalent of nature for natural law or the sovereign for positive law, only better for this is sanctioned by the will of God.The disagreement, however, was on the nature of this domain, what it provides for people (values, general principles, part of the law, etc.), and how it is provided.
Qaradawi (and Kamali who makes similar arguments) argued that Sharī'a can be divided into two parts; a small part that is based on the hermetic verses of the Qur'ān and the Sunna.The second 3.2.Divinity from Nature One way to understand why Muslim jurists were keen to establish the divinity of Sharī'a is that they needed an absolute reference for it.The need for absolutism was not unique for Islamic law, it was a need for law in general.This was illustrated by A. P. D'Entreves who, in making his case for natural law, argues that the most constant feature of Natural Law was "The assertion of the possibility of testing the validity of all laws by referring them to an ultimate measure, to an ideal law which can be known and appraised with an even greater measure of certainty than all existing legislation.Natural law is the outcome of mans quest for an absolute standard of justice ." 52he quest for an ultimate source of law is part of a continuing debate in the philosophy of law which is beyond the scope of this work; but a distinction must be made in this regard between natural law and divine law, namely Sharī'a.Natural law depends on people's understanding of nature and ethics.Therefore, the understanding of the law can change when the understanding of its source changes, despite its perceived absolute nature.People have been and perhaps would always be in quest for some ultimate measure of right and wrong, and law is arguably influenced by this idea. 53n this sense, and since peoples ideas about right and wrong can change over time, the law that is influenced by them will accordingly change.This phenomenon occurs regardless of the perplexity it might cause for people.In the words of D'Entreves, "history had indeed been the stumbling block of all natural law theories.Lawyers, philosophers, and theologians had tried in vain to account for the apparent indifference of historical development to any pattern of right or wrong." 54However, the problem with a divine law like Sharī'a is that it will stand defiantly in the face of any historical change; divinity is simply immunity from change.This is why modern Muslims face a mountainous challenge when trying to validate Qur'ānic verses that permit slavery or command the amputation of the hand of a thief in modern times.This seems like a self-imposed predicament; an ultimate source of law need not be divine, and a divine text need not be an ultimate source of law.Nor could a divine text be the source of a divine law, for divinity cannot be transmitted through human agency.
It must be admitted, however, that the divinity of Sharī'a is not perceived in the naïve sense of a jurist looking at the Qur'ān and simply producing a legal opinion claiming it to be the will of Allah.One way in which Sharī'a is said to be divine is through a sophisticated methodology by which rulings can be deduced from the revealed sources without, the presumption is, being influenced by the jurist's caprice.In other words, the system of deducing rulings from the divine texts is sufficiently sophisticated to rule out any chance of human fallibility having any effect on the understanding of the true divine will.Furthermore, and in addition to its highly sophisticated methodology of textual hermeneutics; Sharī'a also has notions of natural law which are supposedly immune from the fallibilities of humandesigned systems.Relying solely on the divine text would not suffice to produce a comprehensive body of law that is viable for all times and places.Filling the lacunae has been dependent on the methodology of Islamic jurisprudence, yet, there seems to be the sense that the rulings produced had diluted divinity.The evidence for this is the use of natural law concepts that assume human/jurist a divine endowment, which enables him to distinguish right from wrong without any reference to revealed sources.This would reinforce the notion of divinity for Sharī'a even when some of its rulings are made with hardly any reference to the texts.
An example of such natural law concepts can be found in the Mu ͑ tazila's 55 idea of nature.The Mu ͑ tazila says that God cannot do evil and thus nature is good.God has endowed human beings with the ability to distinguish between ḥusn and qubḥ (good and evil) by using only human reason.This provides people with an authoritative source of law when there appears to be a lacuna in the law and the texts seem to be silent on the matter in question.People can readily embark on a rational assessment of what is good and what is evil and produce law on this ground with the conviction that it will reflect the will of God. 56nother example can be found in the Ash ͑ arite School of Theology.According to the Ash ͑ arites, God is omnipotent, thus, cannot be constrained by any external notion of good or evil; what God commands is good and what He forbids is evil. 57In this sense, people do not have the capacity to rationally deduce God's will from nature and the only source for normative judgments is revelation. 58et, some notion of an innate human capacity to find the path of God can be found in this school of thought, particularly, the concept of fiṭra (natural disposition). 59he word fiṭra appeared in the Qur'ān in the verse "So direct your face toward the religion, inclining to truth.[Adhere to] the fiṭrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] people.No change should there be in the creation of Allah.That is the correct religion, but most of people do not know." 60The interpretations of fiṭra have varied, however, a narrower meaning can be seen when taken in the context of the ḥadīth of the Prophet (SAW) who says: "Every child is born according to the fiṭra.Only his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian." 61By using the context of this hadith to understand the meaning of fiṭra in the verse, some scholars put fiṭra to be a natural disposition that, if well preserved, will guide the person to the truth which is Islam. 62This is similar to the concept of human beings having the capacity to rationally distinguish between good and evil that is found in natural law.This conception of fiṭra was more popular among modern Islamic thinkers and reformers 63 , for it provides ample basis for the use of reason in Sharī'a, when the need for reason is much greater than ever before in Islam.Under the pressures of modernity and the recurring need to find legal opinions of Sharī'a (fatwa) about different matters that Muslim communities face, it was increasingly clear that the revealed text does not cover everything.Muslim jurists found that fatwas were relying increasingly more on reason and less on revelation.Although, there were always efforts to link any fatwa to revelation, this link was becoming weaker as issues became more complex and detached from the traditional fiqh of pre-modern Islam.
This connection between reason and divinity can be found in the writings of the Egyptian scholar and theologian, Mohammad Abduh (d.1905).Abduh argued that intelligent people can establish the principles of justice by using reason; however, the community will not respond to their arguments just because they are sound. 64Abduh argued that men are one in "the need to submit to a higher power." 65This seemed like a reference to the need for divinity.In other words, since people will not submit to judgments of reason made by fellow people, then there is a need for people with a divine endowment, that is, Prophets, for whom people will readily respond due to a natural tendency towards the divine.According to Griffel, "the tendency of every community not to submit to rules made by itself makes Sharī'a a necessity." 66This reading of Abduh, although disputed by some, 67 can be sustained by Abduh's idea on prophecy, where he argues that Prophets who come with divine signs "invest the mind like a citadel that finds no option but to surrender…To submit to them is more like a necessity than a studious option of will." 68This seems to suggest that at least one of the reasons for sending Prophets, was to give divine authority to what could have otherwise been known by mere reason.It then follows logically that when there are no Prophets present, the use of reason can suffice in distinguishing between right and wrong, lacking only in social endorsement.

Conclusion
In light of the above discussion, one can understand the eagerness of Muslim scholars and even the public throughout the history of Islam for the attribution of divinity to Sharī'a, not only as an affirmation of its divine sources but also as part of a collective zeal for a supreme religious identity.The distinction, in the sense of supremacy, of Islam to other cultures and religions is an essential part of the Muslim conscious; and Sharī'a is an essential component of this distinction.Sharī'a is not just a legal system or a code of worship and ethics; it is an integral part of Muslims' sense of identity and culture.The divinity of Sharī'a is a matter of pride as well as of legal authority, and while this divinity as a source of authority can, in theory, be critically analysed and rationally discussed, it remains difficult to separate the rational aspect from the Muslims' collective sentiments.Sharī'a recently became an emblem for the umma (Muslim community) where Muslims identify themselves as the 'umma of Sharī'a'.All this gives Sharī'a a high degree of immunity from change in modern times regardless of the aptitude of these changes.This sense of certitude and fixity underpins Sharī'a as a whole and is oblivious to its dual nature, particularly when Sharī'a is present as a source of Islamic identity.Issues related to the viability of Islamic finance in modern markets and the concerns of human rights regarding hudūd are all examples of the challenges faced by Muslims and related to how they define Sharī'a.Therefore, it is important to be aware of the effects caused by the obscurity of the concept of Sharī'a while studying the impact of Sharī'a on the livelihood of Muslims, and how best to address it.

Bibliography
Amanat, Abbas, and Frank Griffel, eds.Sharia : Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context .Edited by Abbas Amanat and Frank Griffel: Stanford University Press, 2007.