Islam & the Modern World · Islam as a Working System
The system fits together
In short
- 1.Prohibit interest, then make giving compulsory and inheritance distributive.
- 2.Prohibit zina, then make marriage cheap and obligatory on the community to arrange.
- 3.Prohibit intoxicants, then supply a community whose social life needs none.
The claim being examined
Islamic rules are encountered as a list of unrelated prohibitions.
The Islamic position
The prohibitions interlock: each closed door opens onto a provided alternative, and the parts hold each other up.
Analysis
This is the synthesis card and the one to finish a long conversation with. The pattern to demonstrate is closure plus provision. Wealth: riba is prohibited, and zakat, fixed inheritance shares, prohibition of hoarding and the encouragement to forgive debts move wealth downward and outward. Sex: zina and the approach to it are prohibited, and marriage is made cheap, encouraged, communally facilitated (Q 24:32) and given a fasting fallback (Sahih al-Bukhari 5065). Intoxicants: prohibited, and the social life that normally requires them is replaced by prayer, mosque, hospitality and Ramadan. Attention and speech: backbiting, suspicion and display are prohibited, and a fixed daily structure of prayer and remembrance is supplied. Family: divorce is permitted but regulated and discouraged, maintenance is obligatory, and kinship ties are religiously enforced. The theological framing is the objectives of the sharia — preservation of religion, life, intellect, lineage and property — under which the individual rulings can be grouped, as in al-Ghazali's al-Mustasfa and al-Shatibi's al-Muwafaqat. Do not claim the system has been implemented or that it guarantees outcomes; the claim is coherence, which can be shown, rather than success, which cannot.
From the Qur'an
وَنَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ تِبْيَانًا لِّكُلِّ شَيْءٍ
And We have sent down to you the Book as a clarification for all things.
مَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيَجْعَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّنْ حَرَجٍ
God does not intend to place you in difficulty.
From the Sunnah
Whoever among you is able to marry, let him marry; and whoever is not able, let him fast, for it is a shield.
Sources
al-Ghazali, al-Mustasfa · al-Shatibi, al-Muwafaqat · al-Shatibi, al-Muwafaqat, on the objectives of the sharia
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