Summary:

The comprehensiveness of Islamic law has been questioned seriously in

the modern period by Muslim reformists like Rashīd Riḍā . Such reformists

have used as evidence Qur’anic verses and Prophetic reports that

seem to state clearly that the strictures of Islamic law are few and

limited and that Muslims should not extend them to all areas of life. How

could the Shariah have developed as a holistic and exhaustive body of

law in light of such evidence? Looking back at earlier Muslim scholars

from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries, however, we see that these

Qur’anic verses and Prophetic edicts were never understood in this way.

They were either diffused with various hermeneutic strategies or understood

as applying to debates unrelated to the comprehensiveness or

minimalism of the Shariah.

Download Full Article PDF