The
basic principle which has been identified is that Islam didn’t come to erase
whatever humans were involved in, and replace it with a whole new set of laws.
It came to reform.
It
cancelled certain things which were clearly harmful to society, where no good
element could be identified that would outweigh the evil. (E.g. Alcohol)
The
laws of Allah were propagated around the world prior to the coming of the
Prophet. Remnants of the previous laws were found in Arabian and world
societies. That is why when we look at the Quranic instructions concerning
prohibitions and commands, Allah says:
Is that which is known. The Quran commands
them to do that which is known to be good. Islam doesn’t command a new good
which has no basis in history in human societies. 
It also teaches us to stay away from that
which is rejected by human nature and societies internationally. There are
things which people naturally reject. But when people decide to determine what
is acceptable and not by votes then you may find these values changing; when
people consider what was a well known evil good, and a well know good and evil. A classic case of that is homosexuality today.
Islam is fundamentally a system of building and not
one of destruction. Its goal is reformation and not one merely of control and
government.
It should be noted that Islam’s confirmation of some
Arab customs doesn’t mean that it has taken its laws and principles from other
sources. This is something modernists like to promote (like saying that the
Hijab is really from Persia, etc.)
The reality is that when Islam adopted or accepted
certain practices which were common among the Arabs at that time, it already had
an origin in revelation. It was a remnant coming from the time of Prophet
Ismaeel. Or it may be logical principles, or principles that would have been
instituted if they were not present in society.
But the reality is what was confirmed was few in
comparison to the many that were cancelled.
And the few that were confirmed were not confirmed
in their existing form. The Hijab of the women were just scarves that exposed
their chests.
The Quranic revelation has taken into consideration
four principles in the enactment of laws:
1)
The Removal of Difficulty
In Christian tradition people tortured
themselves, wrapped themselves in woolen garments and went in the heat, etc.
Their quest to God was a torturous one. The renaissance was a rebellion against
that way.
The
Western psyche has this impression of religion, especially when it comes to
Islam, after they turned religion into something so loose, free,
that the idea of praying 5 times a day, Hajj, etc. are all looked at as burden.
All
the principles which Islam has enacted are there to make life easy for human
beings.
Q. How does depriving
yourself of food and drink 30 days a year make life easier?
A. In
Ramadan we are giving up things that are permissible for us. If we are able to
give up the Halal, it should make it easier for us outside Raman to give us the
unlawful. Success in this life depends on our ability in giving up what is
prohibited. It helps us by putting us through a period of training.
When
we look at the bigger picture, the laws in Islam make life easier. There are a
number of verses in the Qur’an which address this point:
We
find a variety of concessions in the laws. They are not fixed without allowing
for times of difficulty such as the shortening of prayers when you’re
travelling, eating the unlawful when your life is threatened, etc.
Under
the general banner of making things easy for people and not difficult, they
might jump around from school of law to school of law finding concessions. They
‘Fatwa Shop’.
This
is not the correct approach. The correct approach is to follow the Prophet as
much as we can.
2) The Reduction of Religious Obligations
A
person comparing Christianity to Islam may claim that Islam has more laws than
the former. But Christianity isn’t a religion anymore. Islam is a reduction of
the mosaic laws which Jesus affirmed to. Relative to what is known to
Christianity today, where all the laws have been cancelled and people do as
they please, then this is the wrong perspective.
The
legal perspective of Islam is a reflection of Adam in the Garden. All the trees
are permissible, save one. Islam prohibits the one tree. So when law is
described, only the forbidden needs to be described, while the permissible is
everything else. This is a consistent pattern in legislation.
For
example:
In
addition to this, a person forced into an unlawful circumstance isn’t sinful:
You’re
in a country where people are Christian by name, and we are allowed to eat the
food of Christians. What do you do? Allah said:
You
don’t need to go to the kitchen and check and double check and triple
check. You see people sending huge long
lists about this and that unlawful substances in your toothpaste, which equate
the size of a molecule. They go beyond details which the Sharee’ah requires and
is a waste of time.
Once
a man repeatedly asked the Prophet whether Hajj was compulsory every year. The
Prophet ignored him, but he kept insisting. Then the Prophet said:
3) The Realization of Public
Welfare
For
the most part, the prohibited transactions and food are for the sake of the
public welfare.
E.g.
Interest
The
harm which comes from this process is greater than the good. The vast majority
of people in society end up suffering as a result of this.
One
of the evidences of this principle is Abrogation.
In
areas where something may be temporarily suspended because people were not
ready to deal with it at the time, or gradually made prohibited, such things
deal with the society without coming off as a destructive force.
E.g.
The Bequest.
In
Pre-Islamic Arab culture, the property of the deceased was inherited by the
children, mainly the males. The parents had nothing to get. Islamic law
initially made it a requirement to set aside a bit for parents in ones will.
Later on the verses came which specified the amounts which were for each member
of the family.
After
the Quranic laws were revealed identifying the rights of each person, the
Prophet said:
The
bequest wasn’t nullified, but kept for the people who weren’t specifically
prescribed for by Allah.
In many
case Allah identifies the reasons for the enactments of laws:
By giving
rationale behind laws, human beings can apply laws according to its causes. From
this, the scholars extracted a Principle: - The absence of laws is indicated by
the reasons behind it. Where the reason is present, the law is required. Where
the reason is not present, the law is not required.
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