Page 347 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1648 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Islamic Law Jesus Christ the fulfillment of Jewish law.The mission of
Islamic law (sharia) originated with divine revelation.The Paul (first century CE) to non-Jewish communities within
Quran, which Muslim tradition holds was divinely the Roman world, and Paul’s insistence that converts to
inspired, and which is generally believed to have been Christianity were not obligated to follow Jewish law,
written by Muhammad (c. 570–632 CE), contains the entailed a decisive break between Christianity and
founding principles of Islamic law, principally, definitions Judaism. Intermittent Roman persecution of Christianity
of the holy obligations of believers. The Quran has few in the first three centuries CE made the religion essentially
direct legal statements, and these are limited to modifi- a private cult, one which developed little in the way of
cations of Arabic customary law. However, once Muham- laws that governed public life. The conversion of the
mad had established an Islamic community at Medina in Roman emperor Constantine (c. 274–337 CE) to Chris-
622, he began to apply the general ethical and moral tianity, and the subsequent adoption of the religion as the
principles of Islam to matters of secular jurisprudence, official cult of the Roman empire, meant that in secular
thus forming a basis for a specifically Islamic customary legal matters, the Christian church deferred to the secu-
law. The application of Quranic ethics to secular affairs lar powers.The collapse of the Roman empire in the West
developed into an Islamic jurisprudence, by which the left the Christian church as one of the only central author-
juridical goal was the discovery of the exact meaning and ities in western Europe, yet it remained under the domi-
application (fiqh) of Allah’s law in secular matters. The nance of secular kings in legal and jurisdictional matters.
founding of the first Islamic dynastic state, the Umayyad The Investiture Controversy (1075–1122 CE) between
dynasty, in Damascus in 661 broadened the focus of the Holy Roman Emperors Henry IV and Henry V and
Islamic law into areas of civil, commercial, and adminis- Pope Gregory VII, which started as a conflict over lay
trative law. The ninth-century Shafi’i school created a nomination of bishops, was as much a conflict about
comprehensive Islamic jurisprudence that integrated ele- whether or not the state had jurisdiction over the affairs
ments of positive, customary, and natural law. Jurists were of the Church. The outcome decidedly favored the
first obligated to consult the Quran and the precedents Church, and it emerged as an independent institution, a
set by Muhammad on matters of law. In cases to which virtual state, with its own hierarchy and rules of gover-
the positive law of the Quran did not directly apply, nance.The Church created a system of canon law, the jus
judges were then to compare elements of the case at hand novum, that drew heavily from the Roman Code of the
with established precedent (customary law), and finally to Byzantine emperor Justinian, which was newly discov-
take into consideration matters of public interest and ered in the West.The monk Johannes Gratian (d. c. 1160
equity (natural law).The Shafi’i school of Islamic jurispru- CE) drew up the full code of canon law, A Concordance of
dence became the dominant school of Islamic law, espe- Discordant Canons, in 1140; although not formally a
cially within the Sunni communities, and it generally sacred law since it was not held to be divinely revealed,
fixed the available sources of law and juridical procedure. Christian canon law was the first widely used code of law
However, the Shia tradition, which became especially in the West following the collapse of the Roman empire.
influential in modern-day Iran, held that secular rulers
were divinely inspired descendants of Muhammad, and Sacred Law and Integrative
therefore their legal decisions established a much wider Jurisprudence
set of case law that jurists might examine for relevant The modern trend by which in some societies the law is
precedents. viewed as a fixed body of rules set by lawmakers acting
out of secular and rational concerns, while in other soci-
Christian Law eties the law continues to be understood as a function of
The early development of Christianity entailed a break the sacred, has led to what Samuel P. Huntington (1996)
with Judaism and Jewish law. Christian belief considered called a “clash of civilizations.” Nonetheless, even various