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 ( 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
Wa nazzalna alayka al-kitaba tibyanan li-kulli shay'
And We have sent down to you the Book as a clarification for all things.
مَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيَجْعَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّنْ حَرَجٍ
Ma yuridu Allahu li-yaj'ala alaykum min haraj
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
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