> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# What Sharia Is (and Isn't)
- URL: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/what-is-sharia/
- Published: 2026-10-13T13:49:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-14T00:51:38.000Z
- Description: The word, the sources, the five rulings, the aims, the ḥudūd and the doubt maxim, and what any of it asks of a Muslim living under Australian law. Sunni and Shia methods side by side, with the weak reports labelled.
- Author: Mohammad Siddiqui
- Tags: Deen

New to the Qur'an? Start with [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), then read [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/). All articles: [Deen: Start Here](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/deen/).

Deen · Law · Foundations · Australia

Few Arabic words are used so often in English by people who could not define them. In an Australian newspaper "sharia" usually means a punishment, or a fear. To most Muslims I know it means something much closer to home: how to pray, what to eat, how to divide an estate, whether a contract is fair. Both pictures are partial. This piece tries to set out what the word means, where its rules come from, how scholars tell the divine part from the human part, and what any of it asks of a Muslim living under Australian law.

I have tried to lead with what the Qur'an and the sound hadith actually say, and to label everything else for what it is: a school's position, a scholar's argument, a consensus claim, or a weak report that is widely quoted. Where the four Sunni schools (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī) and the Twelver Shia or Jaʿfarī school differ in method, I say so and say who holds what. I have not tried to settle those disputes.

The short version

1. "Sharia" (*sharīʿa*) is the Qur'an's own word for a God-given way: in 45:18 the Prophet is set "on the ˹clear˺ Way \[sharīʿa\] of faith". Its older sense is a path to water.[1](#src-1)[2](#src-2)
2. Muslim scholars separate the Sharia, which they take to be God's, from *fiqh*, the human understanding of it. Egypt's Dar al-Iftāʾ calls fiqh "a human activity undertaken by specialists", and says its opinions are not religion itself.[3](#src-3)
3. The Qur'an and the Sunna are the agreed sources. Consensus (*ijmāʿ*) and analogy (*qiyās*) follow in Sunni theory, and the schools add further methods of their own. Twelver Shia jurists count reason (*ʿaql*) as a source and reject analogy.[4](#src-4)[5](#src-5)[6](#src-6)
4. Acts are graded on a scale of five: obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked and forbidden. A great deal of life sits in the middle, permitted, and a hadith al-Nawawī graded ḥasan says God left some matters unmentioned "out of compassion for you".[2](#src-2)[7](#src-7)
5. The fixed criminal penalties (*ḥudūd*) are a small part of the whole, hedged by demanding rules of proof. "Avert the ḥudūd by doubt" is a maxim jurists accepted widely; the hadith versions of it are graded weak.[3](#src-3)[8](#src-8)[9](#src-9)
6. For a Muslim in Australia, scholars across the Sunni and Shia traditions say the law of the land binds as a promise kept, except where it would require a sin. In 2011 the federal Attorney-General said there was "no place for sharia law in Australian society".[10](#src-10)[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12)

Contents

1. [The word](#the-word)
2. [Sharia and fiqh](#sharia-and-fiqh)
3. [Where the rulings come from](#where-from)
4. [The sources, school by school](#explorer)
5. [The five rulings](#five-rulings)
6. [The aims of the law](#aims)
7. [What it covers](#domains)
8. [The ḥudūd, and doubt](#hudud)
9. [Ijtihād, taqlīd and fatwas](#ijtihad)
10. [Sharia in Australia](#australia)
11. [Some common misunderstandings](#misunderstandings)
12. [Glossary](#glossary)

## 1\. The word

The Arabic root *sh-r-ʿ* has to do with entering, and with a way opened up. Britannica gives the literal sense of *sharīʿa* as "path leading to the watering place", and it is a good image for desert people: the beaten track that brings you to water and keeps you alive.[2](#src-2) The Qur'an uses the word itself only once.

ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَـٰكَ عَلَىٰ شَرِيعَةٍ مِّنَ ٱلْأَمْرِ فَٱتَّبِعْهَا وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَآءَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

"Now We have set you ˹O Prophet˺ on the ˹clear˺ Way \[sharīʿa\] of faith. So follow it, and do not follow the desires of those who do not know ˹the truth˺."

Qur'an 45:18[1](#src-1)

Khattab translates it as a "Way of faith", not as "law", and that choice is worth noticing. The verse is about a path to follow as against the whims of people who do not know, not about a statute book. A related word comes in 5:48, where God tells the Prophet ﷺ that to each community "We have ordained a code of law \[shirʿa\] and a way of life \[minhāj\]".[13](#src-13) The same verse says that if God had willed He would have made people one community, and tells them instead to "compete with one another in doing good". In 42:13 the verb appears: "He has ordained \[sharaʿa\] for you ˹believers˺ the Way which He decreed for Noah", and for Abraham, Moses and Jesus.[14](#src-14) So the Qur'an's own usage puts the emphasis on a divinely marked way that the prophets share at its core, with particular laws that differ between communities.

The flip side is in 42:21, which asks whether people have partners besides God "who have ordained for them" what God has not authorised.[15](#src-15) The claim being made by the word, then, is about authority. A sharīʿa in the Qur'an's sense is a way whose author is God. Everything else in this article follows from that claim, including the long argument about how human beings are supposed to know what that way requires.

## 2\. Sharia and fiqh

Muslim scholars have long distinguished between the Sharia and *fiqh*. Fiqh literally means "understanding", and the Qur'an uses the verb when it asks that a party of believers stay behind "to gain religious knowledge \[li-yatafaqqahū\]" and teach their people.[16](#src-16)[2](#src-2) In a hadith in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, Muʿāwiya heard the Prophet ﷺ say: "If Allah wants to do good to a person, He makes him comprehend the religion", using the same root.[17](#src-17)

Over time fiqh came to name the discipline of working out, from the sources, what the Sharia requires in a given case. Egypt's Dar al-Iftāʾ, one of the oldest state fatwa bodies, puts the distinction plainly. The ruling of the Sharia "is taken from its foundational sources, unanimously agreed upon", whereas fiqh "is a human activity undertaken by specialists in the Shari'a", and its opinions "are not to be understood as constituting religion."[3](#src-3) Britannica makes a similar point from the outside: ijtihād, the jurist's effort, "can result only in a tentative conclusion, termed ẓann ("conjecture")", contrasted with certain knowledge.[2](#src-2)

That distinction does a lot of quiet work. It is why a Ḥanafī and a Shāfiʿī can pray differently beside each other and both be praying correctly by their own school's lights. It is also why a ruling in a medieval legal manual is not automatically "the Sharia" for today, and why, on the other side, no scholar is free to declare that a clear command of the Qur'an has lapsed. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, whose introduction to the subject is a common starting point in English, is described in the book's own blurb as questioning "whether Islam is as much of a law-based religion as it has often been made out to be".[18](#src-18) Wael Hallaq, writing as a historian, argues (as Iza Hussin's review of his *Sharīʿa* summarises it) that the modern state changed the Sharia profoundly when it codified it, so that what survives in most countries is mainly family law, cut off from the scholarly institutions that once carried it.[19](#src-19)

None of this makes fiqh optional in the way a reader might hope. The Qur'an tells believers to "obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you", and when they disagree, to "refer it to Allah and His Messenger".[20](#src-20) Fiqh is the long, disciplined attempt to do that referring. It is human, it can be wrong, and it is also the only way most Muslims have ever had of knowing what the Sharia asks of them on a Tuesday afternoon.

## 3\. Where the rulings come from

### The Qur'an

Everything starts here, and every school agrees on that. Yet the Qur'an is not a legal code. Britannica estimates that "only about 10 percent of its verses deal with legal issues", and many of those are general.[2](#src-2) The Qur'an itself points beyond its own text for the detail. It tells the Prophet that the Reminder was sent down to him "so that you may explain to people what has been revealed for them".[21](#src-21)

### The Sunna

The Sunna, the Prophet's ﷺ practice as preserved in hadith reports, is the second agreed source. The Qur'an's instruction is direct: "Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it. And whatever he forbids you from, leave it."[22](#src-22) In 4:65 it says that believers will not truly believe "until they accept you ˹O Prophet˺ as the judge in their disputes".[23](#src-23)

Two sound hadith show something of how he handled the law himself. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ he tells his Companions: "Leave me as I leave you ... if I forbid you to do something, then keep away from it. And if I order you to do something, then do of it as much as you can."[24](#src-24) In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ the same teaching comes with its occasion: a man asked whether Hajj was due every year, and the Prophet stayed silent until he had asked three times, then said that had he said yes, it would have become obligatory and they could not have done it.[25](#src-25) The texts themselves, in other words, warn against multiplying obligations by asking for them.

For Twelver Shia jurists the Sunna also includes the authoritative teaching of the twelve Imams. Sayyid Riḍā Ḥusaynī Nasab, writing for a Shia readership, says the Imams of the Prophet's household are "regarded as the transmitters of the Sunnah", and that what they say "is the same as the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet".[5](#src-5) From outside the tradition, Britannica describes Shiʿi law as growing from a system in which the imams were held to be "the spokesmen of the Lawgiver himself."[2](#src-2)

### Consensus (ijmāʿ)

Britannica defines *ijmāʿ* as "the universal and infallible agreement of either the Muslim community as a whole or Muslim scholars in particular".[26](#src-26) In Sunni legal theory a matter on which the qualified scholars of an age genuinely agreed is treated as settled. The hadith most often quoted for this, "my nation will not unite on misguidance", appears in Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī and Sunan Ibn Mājah, and both versions are graded weak (ḍaʿīf) by Darussalam on sunnah.com.[27](#src-27)[28](#src-28) The Shāfiʿī school, Britannica notes, "accepted but not stressed" consensus; the Ẓāhirīs, a literalist school, "looked askance at" it.[29](#src-29)[30](#src-30) Twelver jurists list consensus among their four sources.[5](#src-5) What exactly counts as a consensus, and how anyone could know one existed, is itself a long-running argument.

### Analogy (qiyās)

*Qiyās* is "analogical reasoning as applied to the deduction of juridical principles from the Qurʾān and the Sunnah", and with the Qur'an, Sunna and ijmāʿ it makes up the classical four.[4](#src-4) The textbook example is intoxicants: the Qur'an names wine (*khamr*), and jurists extend the ruling to other substances that share its effective cause, intoxication. Britannica credits al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820) with building the theory in which "the Qurʾān and the Prophetic example (Sunnah) were the only authoritative sources of law", with analogy as the main tool for extending their rulings; his *Risāla* is the founding text of the genre.[2](#src-2)[31](#src-31)

Not everyone accepted it. The Ẓāhirīs "rejected practices in law (fiqh) such as analogical reasoning (qiyas) and pure reason (raʾy)".[30](#src-30) Twelver Shia jurists reject qiyās too. A report in al-Kulaynī's *al-Kāfī*, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī, has Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq say that the Sunna cannot be reached by analogy, and that if it could, "the religion would have been destroyed".[6](#src-6)

### The judge who strives

The report most often quoted for independent legal reasoning is that of Muʿādh ibn Jabal. Sent to Yemen, he is asked how he will judge, and replies: by the Book of God, then by the Sunna, then "I shall do my best to form an opinion". It is in Sunan Abī Dāwūd, and al-Albānī graded it weak.[32](#src-32) It is still quoted in almost every textbook of legal theory, so it is worth knowing its status. The sound basis for ijtihād is another report, in both Ṣaḥīḥs: a judge who strives and gets it right has two rewards, and one who strives and gets it wrong still has one.[33](#src-33)[34](#src-34) The Qur'an also speaks of matters that should be referred to those "with sound judgment among them \[alladhīna yastanbiṭūnahu\]", the verb that later gave legal theory its word for deriving rulings.[35](#src-35)

### Further methods, school by school

Beyond the four, the schools differ. The Ḥanafīs are "noted for \[their\] extensive reliance on systematic reasoning (raʾy) in the absence of precedent", and for *istiḥsān*, juristic preference, which they defended as a refined kind of analogy. Al-Shāfiʿī, by Britannica's account, "forbade the use of istiḥsān altogether".[36](#src-36)[37](#src-37) The Mālikīs read the Qur'an and Hadith through "local Medinese community practice (ʿamal)", on the view that the living practice of the Prophet's city was itself evidence.[38](#src-38) Ibn Ḥanbal drew on hadith and on the opinions of early jurists across the Muslim lands.[2](#src-2) Consideration of public welfare (*istiṣlāḥ* or *maṣlaḥa*) appears across the schools as a subsidiary principle.[2](#src-2) Twelver jurists add reason, *ʿaql*, to the Book, the Sunna and consensus as their fourth source.[5](#src-5)

The explorer below lays this out. Tap a school to see which sources it accepts.

## 4\. The sources, school by school

All Ḥanafī Mālikī Shāfiʿī Ḥanbalī Jaʿfarī Ẓāhirī 

Each card opens for detail. The labels show who accepts each source, as the cited references describe them.

The Qur'an 

- Ḥanafī
- Mālikī
- Shāfiʿī
- Ḥanbalī
- Jaʿfarī
- Ẓāhirī

The first source for every school. About a tenth of its verses deal with law, and it sends the reader to the Prophet for the detail (16:44).

The Sunna 

- Ḥanafī
- Mālikī
- Shāfiʿī
- Ḥanbalī
- Jaʿfarī
- Ẓāhirī

The Prophet's practice, known through hadith judged sound. Early on, the Mālikīs and Ḥanafīs gave more weight to their own regional traditions, while al-Shāfiʿī and Ibn Ḥanbal gave priority to authentic hadith. For Twelvers it includes the teaching of the Imams.

Consensus (ijmāʿ) 

- Ḥanafī
- Mālikī
- Shāfiʿī
- Ḥanbalī
- Jaʿfarī
- Ẓāhirī: wary

Agreement of the qualified scholars (or the community). The best-known hadith for it are graded weak, and what counts as a consensus is itself argued over.

Analogy (qiyās) 

- Ḥanafī
- Mālikī
- Shāfiʿī
- Ḥanbalī
- Jaʿfarī: rejects
- Ẓāhirī: rejects

Extending a ruling to a new case that shares its effective cause, as with intoxicants and wine. Central to al-Shāfiʿī's theory.

Reason (ʿaql) 

- Jaʿfarī

Listed by Twelver jurists as the fourth source, alongside the Book, the Sunna and consensus.

Juristic preference (istiḥsān) 

- Ḥanafī
- Mālikī
- Shāfiʿī: forbade it

Departing from a strict analogy for a better-grounded result. The Ḥanafīs treated it as a refined analogy. Al-Shāṭibī, a Mālikī, defines it for his school as acting on a particular interest against a general proof, and reports Mālik's saying, through Ibn al-Qāsim, that istiḥsān is nine-tenths of knowledge.

The practice of Medina (ʿamal ahl al-Madīna) 

- Mālikī

The living practice of the Prophet's city, read as evidence of his Sunna.

Opinions of early jurists 

- Ḥanbalī

Ibn Ḥanbal drew on the opinions of early Muslim jurists across the Muslim lands, alongside hadith. Al-Shāfiʿī, by contrast, rejected their binding precedent.

Public interest (maṣlaḥa, istiṣlāḥ) 

Discussed across the schools as a subsidiary principle, with much argument over its limits. Al-Ghazālī, a Shāfiʿī, tied it to the five necessities discussed below.

Sources for the explorer: Britannica on Sharia, ijmāʿ, qiyās, istiḥsān and the Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ẓāhirī schools; Ḥusaynī Nasab and al-Kāfī for the Jaʿfarī column; al-Shāṭibī for the Mālikī view of istiḥsān.[2](#src-2)[37](#src-37)[38](#src-38)[29](#src-29)[30](#src-30)[5](#src-5)[6](#src-6)[99](#src-99)

## 5\. The five rulings

Classical fiqh grades every human act on a scale. The usual list has five steps, and you will hear the terms in Friday sermons and read them in fatwa columns without always being told what they mean.

**Wājib**obligatory: rewarded if done, sinful if left

**Mandūb**recommended: rewarded if done, no sin if left

**Mubāḥ**permitted: neither

**Makrūh**disliked: rewarded if left, no sin if done

**Ḥarām**forbidden: sinful if done

Britannica points out what makes this unusual as law. The middle categories carry no court penalty at all: recommended and disliked acts bring "divine favour" or "divine disfavour", "however, in neither case is there any legal sanction".[2](#src-2) The Sharia, in that sense, is as much a moral code as a legal one.

The Ḥanafīs subdivide further. Faraz Rabbani lists eight categories, following Ḥanafī usage: *farḍ* (established by a decisive text) and *wājib* (a firm command whose text "allows the possibility of interpretation"), the confirmed sunna, the recommended, the permitted, the lightly disliked (*makrūh tanzīhan*), the prohibitively disliked (*makrūh taḥrīman*) and the forbidden.[39](#src-39) The extra steps track how certain the evidence is, not only how serious the act. So "wājib" means slightly different things in a Ḥanafī book and a Shāfiʿī one, which confuses people who read across schools.

Two things in the sound texts shape how this scale is used. The first is that most of life is permitted. In a report al-Nawawī included in his Forty Hadith and called ḥasan, the Prophet ﷺ says God has laid down obligations, set limits and forbidden some things, "and He has remained silent about some things, out of compassion for you, not forgetfulness, so do not seek after them."[7](#src-7) A similar report in al-Tirmidhī about cheese, fat and furs ends, "what He was silent about; then it is among that for which He has pardoned"; Darussalam grades it ḥasan, though al-Tirmidhī and al-Bukhārī both thought the version stopping at the Companion Salmān more correct.[40](#src-40) Ibn ʿAbbās says the same in his own words in Sunan Abī Dāwūd.[41](#src-41) Many jurists read these texts as establishing a default of permissibility, though not all in the same way. Al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505), a Shāfiʿī, gives the maxim "the default in things is permissibility until evidence indicates prohibition" (*al-aṣl fī al-ashyāʾ al-ibāḥa*), calls it his own school's position, reports that for Abū Ḥanīfa the default is prohibition until evidence indicates permission, and cites in support the report quoted above in which God "has remained silent about some things".[100](#src-100) Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), a Ḥanbalī, draws the line between worship and ordinary custom: Aḥmad and other jurists of the hadith party, he says, held that in acts of worship nothing is prescribed unless God prescribed it, while in customs (*ʿādāt*) the default is pardon, so nothing is forbidden unless God forbade it.[101](#src-101) That is a juristic principle drawn from the reports, not a hadith in its own right.

The second is that the grey zone is real. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr heard the Prophet say that the lawful and the unlawful are both evident, "but in between them there are doubtful (suspicious) things and most of the people have no knowledge about them", and that whoever keeps clear of them protects his religion and honour.[42](#src-42) That hadith is about personal caution. It does not license anyone to declare new prohibitions for others, which the Qur'an treats as a serious matter: "Do not falsely declare with your tongues, 'This is lawful, and that is unlawful,' ˹only˺ fabricating lies against Allah."[43](#src-43) And 5:101 warns believers against asking about things which, "if made clear to you, may disturb you".[44](#src-44)

## 6\. The aims of the law

Why does the Sharia command what it commands? The Qur'an gives reasons more often than people expect. On fasting: "Allah intends ease for you, not hardship".[45](#src-45) On the religion as a whole: God "laid upon you no hardship in the religion".[46](#src-46) "Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford."[47](#src-47) The Prophet is described as one who "relieves them from their burdens and the shackles that bound them", and as sent "only as a mercy for the whole world".[48](#src-48)[49](#src-49) When someone is "compelled by necessity, neither driven by desire nor exceeding immediate need", even forbidden food carries no sin.[50](#src-50) And the Sunna confirms the temper of it. "Facilitate things to people ... and do not make it hard for them," he told his Companions, and ʿĀʾisha said that whenever he was given a choice between two matters he took the easier, "as long as it was not sinful".[51](#src-51)[52](#src-52)

From texts like these, jurists built a theory of the law's purposes, *maqāṣid al-sharīʿa*. It is important to say clearly that this is scholarly reasoning built on the texts, not a further source standing beside them. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350), a Ḥanbalī, put its premise memorably: "the Sharia is founded upon wisdom and welfare for the servants in this life and the afterlife", and "in its entirety it is justice, mercy, benefit, and wisdom."[53](#src-53)

The classic list comes from al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), a Shāfiʿī, in *al-Mustaṣfā*. He named five things the law protects: religion, life, intellect, progeny and property, and said it was inconceivable that any religion or law would neglect them.[54](#src-54) Later writers argued over whether the list was closed; al-Ghazālī himself, according to AbdulHameed Yusuf's survey, never said these were the only ones, and some later jurists added honour (*ʿirḍ*).[54](#src-54) Al-Shāṭibī (d. 1388), a Mālikī of Granada, made the theory central in his *al-Muwāfaqāt*, ranking the law's concerns as necessities (*ḍarūriyyāt*), needs (*ḥājiyyāt*) and improvements (*taḥsīniyyāt*).[55](#src-55) In the twentieth century the Tunisian scholar Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1973) proposed the maqāṣid as the method for renewing legal theory; he rejected honour as a separate necessity and recast progeny more broadly as care for the family.[56](#src-56)[54](#src-54)

One much-quoted maxim belongs here: "There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm" (*lā ḍarar wa-lā ḍirār*). Its grading is a good example of why it pays to look. Al-Nawawī included it among his Forty Hadith and called it ḥasan, noting Mālik's version without a Companion in the chain and other routes that "strengthen one another"; Darussalam grades the two chains in Sunan Ibn Mājah weak.[57](#src-57)[58](#src-58) Jurists of every school use it as a legal maxim. Whether it is also a sound hadith depends on whose grading you follow.

The maqāṣid approach has critics as well as champions. Yusuf's article records, among other objections, the view that classifying values into necessities, needs and improvements "is faulty", and much of the modern debate is over how far the purposes may be used to reason where the texts are silent.[54](#src-54)

## 7\. What it covers

A typical legal manual begins with purity, prayer, zakat, fasting and pilgrimage. Britannica notes that ritual practice is "an integral part of sharia law" and usually occupies the first chapters, and divides the whole into duties owed to God (*ʿibādāt*, worship) and duties owed to other people (*muʿāmalāt*, dealings).[2](#src-2) The second half covers sale, hire, partnership, debt, gifts, endowments (*waqf*), marriage, divorce, maintenance, custody, inheritance, injury and evidence. Criminal law comes late and is short.

Several Qur'anic commands sit over the whole of the dealings side. "O believers! Honour your obligations \[awfū bi-l-ʿuqūd\]", opens sura 5, and the Arabic word Khattab renders as obligations, *ʿuqūd*, is the ordinary word for contracts.[59](#src-59) "Honour ˹your˺ pledges, for you will surely be accountable for them."[60](#src-60) The longest verse in the Qur'an, 2:282, is about writing down debts with witnesses, because it is "more just ... and more convenient to establish evidence and remove doubts."[61](#src-61) In a report Darussalam grades ṣaḥīḥ, the Prophet ﷺ says that "the Muslims will be held to their conditions, except the conditions that make the lawful unlawful" or the unlawful lawful.[62](#src-62)[63](#src-63) And over all of it: "Allah commands justice, grace, as well as generosity to close relatives".[64](#src-64)[65](#src-65)

The Sharia also leaves a great deal to human expertise. When the Prophet's ﷺ advice on pollinating date palms turned out badly, he said, in a report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ: "You have better knowledge (of a technical skill) in the affairs of the world."[66](#src-66) Ibn ʿĀshūr, among others, set out criteria for telling the Prophet's statements meant as binding law apart from those made in other capacities.[56](#src-56) It is one reason why rules about traffic, building codes or food safety are not, in themselves, a Sharia question.

In practice, Britannica observes that "in most Muslim countries, the application of Islamic law in public life is confined to matters of family law, such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance."[2](#src-2) Hallaq, as quoted in the same review, calls family law "the last fortress of the Shari'a to survive the ravages of modernisation".[19](#src-19) Historically, too, rulers' courts (*maẓālim*) dealt with much criminal and commercial business, so the Sharia "never formed a complete or exclusively authoritative expression of the laws that governed the lives of Muslims in practice".[2](#src-2)

## 8\. The ḥudūd, and doubt

The *ḥudūd* ("limits") are the few offences whose penalties the jurists held to be fixed by the texts. The Qur'an names lashing for unlawful sexual intercourse (24:2) and cutting the hand for theft (5:38), and lashing for a false accusation of adultery (24:4).[67](#src-67)[68](#src-68)[69](#src-69) The penalty of stoning for married offenders rests on the Sunna, including ʿUmar's sermon in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.[70](#src-70) Homicide and wounding are dealt with differently. For murder the Qur'an sets retaliation (*qiṣāṣ*), and then says: "But if the offender is pardoned by the victim’s guardian, then blood-money should be decided fairly".[71](#src-71) For wounds it sets "equal retaliation", adding that "whoever waives it charitably, it will be atonement for them".[102](#src-102) In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ the Prophet ﷺ says that when someone is killed, "his closest relative has the right to choose one of two things": blood money or retaliation.[103](#src-103) Ibn Kathīr explains the pardon in 2:178 as the victim's relatives accepting blood money in place of retaliation.[104](#src-104) So these offences work more like a claim belonging to the victim or the family, who can choose retaliation or blood money, or forgive.

That list sounds severe, and it is. But the same texts set the bar of proof very high. A charge of adultery needs four witnesses, and the accuser who cannot produce them is himself punished.[69](#src-69) The theft penalty applies only above a threshold; in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ that is "a quarter of a Dinar or more."[72](#src-72) When Māʿiz came to confess, the Prophet ﷺ sent him away: "go back, ask forgiveness of Allah and turn to Him in repentance", and asked him, in another report, "Probably you have only kissed (the lady), or winked, or looked at her?"[73](#src-73)[74](#src-74) In Sunan Abī Dāwūd, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, he says: "Forgive the infliction of prescribed penalties among yourselves, for any prescribed penalty of which I hear must be carried out."[75](#src-75) And when the Quraysh tried to have a well-born woman of Makhzūm spared, he said that earlier nations were destroyed because they punished the poor and let the noble go, and swore that if Fāṭima, his own daughter, stole, the law would apply to her.[76](#src-76)

Out of these cases came the maxim "avert the ḥudūd by doubts" (*idraʾū l-ḥudūd bi-l-shubuhāt*). Hadith versions exist. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī has, from ʿĀʾisha: "Avert the legal penalties from the Muslims as much as possible ... for if the Imam makes a mistake in forgiving it would be better than making mistake in punishment." Sunan Ibn Mājah has a shorter version from Abū Hurayra. Darussalam grades both weak.[8](#src-8)[77](#src-77) So the maxim cannot honestly be presented as an established saying of the Prophet.

What rests on what: the doubt maxim

**What the sound texts establish.** Very demanding proof for the ḥudūd (24:4; the quarter-dinar threshold); the Prophet turning a confessor away and suggesting lesser explanations; the instruction to forgive penalties before they reach him; equal application to rich and poor.[69](#src-69)[72](#src-72)[73](#src-73)[74](#src-74)[75](#src-75)[76](#src-76)

**What the weak reports say.** The explicit wording "avert the ḥudūd ... as much as possible" is found in reports graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam.[8](#src-8)[77](#src-77)

**What rests on juristic reasoning.** Intisar Rabb's study found that early jurists cited the maxim as an anonymous saying of unspecified origin, and only later works attributed it to the Prophet.[9](#src-9) Elias Saba's review of her later book, *Doubt in Islamic Law*, summarises what she found next: most jurists used the maxim widely, the Ẓāhirīs and the early Ḥanbalīs opposed it, and a similar split ran between tradition-minded and rationalist Shia jurists.[78](#src-78) Dar al-Iftāʾ today states the principle that "the hudud are to be avoided in cases of doubt."[3](#src-3)

Dar al-Iftāʾ also makes a point worth repeating to anyone who thinks of the Sharia only in these terms: "the shari'a is greater and broader than simply the hadd punishments".[3](#src-3) The ḥudūd chapters are a few pages in manuals that run to many volumes. Whether, where and how such penalties should be applied in modern states is a political and legal debate among Muslims themselves, and it is not one this article tries to settle. In Australia the question does not arise: criminal law is the state's.

## 9\. Ijtihād, taqlīd and fatwas

*Ijtihād* is the qualified jurist's effort to derive a ruling from the sources. The hadith of the judge with two rewards or one, in both Ṣaḥīḥs, is its warrant: the effort is rewarded even when the result is wrong.[33](#src-33) *Taqlīd* is the ordinary believer's following of a qualified scholar or school. Jurists often cite 16:43, "ask those who have knowledge", though in context the verse addresses people who doubted that earlier prophets were human.[79](#src-79) Britannica summarises the traditional expectation that Muslims "follow a recognized jurist or school of jurisprudence rather than pick and choose among interpretations according to personal preference."[2](#src-2)

Twelver Shia law makes this formal. Al-Sīstānī's *Islamic Laws* opens with it: a person "must either be a jurist (mujtahid)", follow one, or act on precaution, and those who can neither reach the level of mujtahid nor act on precaution must follow a mujtahid.[80](#src-80) Shia believers follow such a jurist, usually called a *marjaʿ*, and Liyakat Takim notes that the rulings of the great maraji in Najaf and Qum are "seen as normative and binding on their followers all over the world".[81](#src-81) I have written more about how this works for Sunni Muslims in [Following a Madhhab](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/following-a-madhhab/), and I will not repeat it here.

A *fatwa* is a scholar's answer to a question. Britannica describes fatwas as authoritative but "generally not treated as binding judgments"; a person who finds one unconvincing may ask another mufti.[82](#src-82) That is quite different from a judge's ruling in a dispute, which settles the case. A great deal of public confusion comes from treating every fatwa reported in the news as if it were a law that all Muslims must obey.

## 10\. Sharia in Australia

At the 2021 Census, 813,392 people in Australia, or 3.2 per cent of the population, gave their religion as Islam.[83](#src-83) Nearly all of them were born into, or chose, a life in which the civil, criminal and family law is Australian, and the Sharia is followed through prayer, fasting, zakat, food, dress, marriage customs, wills that follow the Islamic shares, and the choices people make in business and finance.

### Living under a non-Muslim state

Is it permitted to live here at all? Classical jurists discussed this under the heading of migration (*hijra*), and the texts pull in two directions. In Sunan Abī Dāwūd, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī apart from one sentence, the Prophet ﷺ says: "I am not responsible for any Muslim who stays among polytheists."[84](#src-84) The context is a raid in which Muslims living among the enemy were killed by mistake. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, after the conquest of Mecca, he says: "There is no Hijra ... after the Conquest, but Jihad and good intention remain".[85](#src-85)

Modern answers vary, and I give them side by side. Egypt's Dar al-Iftāʾ, in a 2019 fatwa by Shawqī ʿAllām, says there is no objection to a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country so long as he is safe in his religion, life and honour, and able to practise his religion openly.[86](#src-86) Islam Q&A takes a more guarded line: settling there is not permitted for someone who cannot practise openly and could leave, but may be allowed if he can practise more fully there than elsewhere and can protect himself from its temptations; it quotes Ibn ʿUthaymīn calling this "one of the most difficult issues nowadays".[87](#src-87) A whole literature, the "jurisprudence of Muslim minorities" (*fiqh al-aqalliyyāt*), has grown up around these questions, and Andrew March's work traces its debates over how far Muslims can affirm a secular, neutral state.[88](#src-88)

### Keeping the law of the land

On obeying the law, the scholars converge more than they differ. The Jordanian fatwa office ruled in 2011 that "it is imperative that a Muslim, who lives in a non-Muslim country, complies with the laws and regulations of that country" so long as they do not require a sin, citing "Honour ˹your˺ pledges" (17:34).[10](#src-10)[60](#src-60) Al-Sīstānī's *Code of Practice for Muslims in the West* treats wronging non-Muslims' property as "perfidy and violation of the guarantee" a Muslim gave when he "asked permission to enter or reside in that country", and forbids getting benefits by "giving false information to the authorities".[11](#src-11) Takim reports al-Khūʾī's ruling that it is forbidden to disobey the laws of the land even in a non-Muslim country, and Faḍlallāh's view that obtaining a visa "is a contract with the government of that country".[81](#src-81) The textual thread through all of these is the command to keep contracts and pledges (5:1, 17:34) and the sound hadith that a Muslim listens and obeys "as long as his orders involve not one in disobedience (to Allah)".[59](#src-59)[89](#src-89)

The Qur'an's frame for relations with non-Muslim neighbours is 60:8: "Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes."[90](#src-90) And justice is owed even where there is hostility: "Do not let the hatred of a people lead you to injustice."[91](#src-91)

### What Australian law says

Australian law has looked at these questions a few times. The Australian Law Reform Commission's report *Multiculturalism and the Law* (April 1992) said that multicultural policy requires all Australians "to accept the basic structures and principles of Australian society", argued against special laws for particular ethnic groups in favour of general reform, noted that civil and religious marriages are both recognised as legal marriages, and recommended protection for a spouse whose partner refuses to cooperate in a religious divorce.[92](#src-92) Bigamy is an offence under s 94 of the Marriage Act 1961, with a penalty of imprisonment for five years.[93](#src-93)[92](#src-92) A polygamous union entered into outside Australia is, however, "deemed to be a marriage" for the purpose of proceedings under the Family Law Act 1975.[105](#src-105)

In April 2011 the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils told a parliamentary inquiry that "multiculturalism should lead to legal pluralism".[94](#src-94) The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, answered in May that "there is no place for sharia law in Australian society and the government strongly rejects any proposal for its introduction".[12](#src-12) Ghena Krayem's study of how Australian Muslims actually resolve family disputes, published in 2014, questions the assumption that meeting their needs requires a separate legal system at all.[95](#src-95) A religious divorce, Jewish or Islamic, has no legal effect on its own in Australia; only the civil divorce does, which is why the ALRC looked at spouses left unable to remarry within their faith because the other party would not cooperate.[92](#src-92)

Finance is where Sharia questions meet Australian regulation most directly. I have written about that separately in [Riba: A Study in Evidence](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/riba-a-study-in-evidence/) and [Halal Super in Australia](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/halal-super-in-australia/).

## 11\. Some common misunderstandings

### "Sharia means harsh punishments."

The criminal chapters are a small part of the law, with very high standards of proof, and most of what the Sharia governs is prayer, fasting, charity, trade, marriage and inheritance.[2](#src-2)[3](#src-3) A Muslim in Sydney who prays, pays zakat and keeps a fair contract is "practising the Sharia" in the plainest sense.

### "Sharia is a single fixed code."

Britannica calls it "a candidly pluralistic system", with distinct Sunni and Shia schools.[2](#src-2) Muslims themselves disagree on this point: Pew's 2013 survey found majorities in South Asia saying there is only one way to understand sharia, while in Tunisia and Morocco majorities said there are several.[96](#src-96) Britannica also quotes the famous line "Difference of opinion among my community is a sign of God's bounty" as only "a putative dictum of the Prophet", which is the right caution for a line so often quoted as a hadith.[2](#src-2)

### "Everything in a fiqh book is God's command."

The scholars themselves say otherwise. Fiqh is "a human activity", and its opinions "are not to be understood as constituting religion."[3](#src-3) The hadith of the judge rewarded even for a wrong ruling assumes that sincere scholars will sometimes be wrong.[33](#src-33)

### "Then Sharia is whatever anyone says it is."

Nor that. The Qur'an and the sound Sunna bind every school, and the Qur'an warns against declaring things lawful or unlawful without authority from God.[43](#src-43) The scope for different readings is wide in some areas and very narrow in others: no school, for example, disputes that the five daily prayers are obligatory.

### "A fatwa is binding on all Muslims."

A fatwa is an answer to a question, authoritative but "generally not treated as binding judgments".[82](#src-82) For Twelvers, a follower acts on the fatwas of the jurist he follows; for Sunnis, on the rulings of a school or a trusted scholar. Neither is the same as a court order.

### "Muslims in Australia want to replace Australian law."

The scholarly bodies quoted above, Sunni and Shia, tell Muslims to obey the laws of the country they live in, as a kept promise.[10](#src-10)[11](#src-11)[81](#src-81) Even in Muslim-majority countries, Pew found that most people who want sharia as official law do not believe it should apply to non-Muslims.[96](#src-96) AFIC's 2011 submission asked for legal pluralism, and the government rejected it.[94](#src-94)[12](#src-12) Some Muslims would like more recognition of Islamic family law; Krayem's research is the place to read about what they actually do.[95](#src-95)

### "Judging by what God revealed means Muslims must overthrow non-Muslim governments."

Verses such as 5:44, "those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are ˹truly˺ the disbelievers", are addressed in context to people entrusted with scripture and the power to judge by it.[97](#src-97) How they apply to rulers today is argued over among Muslims. For a Muslim citizen in Australia the operative texts are those on keeping pledges and dealing justly with neighbours, which the scholars above apply directly.[60](#src-60)[90](#src-90) And the Qur'an's principle that "there be no compulsion in religion" applies here as everywhere.[98](#src-98)

## Glossary

Sharīʿa

The God-given way; Islamic law as Muslims believe God intends it.

Fiqh

"Understanding": the human science of working out what the Sharia requires.

Uṣūl al-fiqh

Legal theory: the study of the sources and methods of fiqh.

Ijmāʿ

Consensus of qualified scholars (or the community).

Qiyās

Analogy: extending a ruling to a new case with the same effective cause.

ʿAql

Reason, counted as a source in Twelver Shia legal theory.

Istiḥsān

Juristic preference, departing from a strict analogy.

Maṣlaḥa, istiṣlāḥ

Public interest, and reasoning from it.

Maqāṣid al-sharīʿa

The aims of the law, a theory built on the texts.

Wājib, mandūb, mubāḥ, makrūh, ḥarām

Obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked, forbidden.

ʿIbādāt, muʿāmalāt

Acts of worship; dealings between people.

Ḥudūd

"Limits": offences with penalties held to be fixed by the texts.

Ijtihād

A qualified jurist's effort to derive a ruling.

Taqlīd

Following a qualified jurist or school.

Mujtahid, marjaʿ

A jurist qualified for ijtihād; in Shia usage, a senior jurist whom believers follow.

Fatwa, muftī

A scholar's answer to a question; the scholar who gives it.

Qāḍī

A judge.

Hijra

Migration, especially for the sake of religion.

**Not a fatwa, and not legal advice.** This is a research article. It reports what the texts say and what scholars, courts and Australian bodies have said, with sources. It does not tell you what to do in your own case. For a religious ruling, ask a qualified scholar you trust; for anything touching Australian law (a marriage, a divorce, a will, a contract), ask an Australian lawyer as well.

**Spotted a mistake, or know a better source?** I check and correct these pages when readers point things out. Please email [mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com](mailto:mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com?subject=Correction%3A%20What%20Sharia%20Is%20%28and%20Isn%27t%29) with the passage, what you think is wrong, and your source (Qur'an reference, hadith with collection and number, or a book with page).

## Sources

These are the sources behind the numbered notes, in the order they are first cited. Qur'an references link to quran.com, and the English is Mustafa Khattab's *The Clear Quran* as shown there, with his ˹ ˺ brackets kept; where his English renders a term this article is discussing (sharīʿa, shirʿa, the word behind "religious knowledge"), I add the Arabic in square brackets. Hadith references link to sunnah.com: reports in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are accepted as authentic in Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade sunnah.com shows and who gave it. Twelver Shia texts link to Thaqalayn, Al-Islam.org and sistani.org.

1. Qur'an 45:18 ("the ˹clear˺ Way of faith", Arabic *sharīʿa min al-amr*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/45/18](https://quran.com/45/18?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
2. Noel James Coulson, Ahmed El Shamsy and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Sharia", *Encyclopaedia Britannica*, last updated 25 September 2026 (literal meaning "path leading to the watering place"; fiqh as "understanding"; about 10 percent of the Qurʾān's verses on legal issues; ijtihād yields ẓann; istiḥsān and istiṣlāḥ; ʿibādāt and muʿāmalāt; a "candidly pluralistic system"; application mostly confined to family law): [britannica.com/topic/sharia](https://www.britannica.com/topic/sharia?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
3. Dar al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya, "Shariah Law" (article 111: Sharia taken from its agreed foundational sources; fiqh "a human activity undertaken by specialists"; hudud "to be avoided in cases of doubt"; "the shari'a is greater and broader than simply the hadd punishments"): [dar-alifta.org/en/article/details/111](https://www.dar-alifta.org/en/article/details/111/shariah-law?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
4. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Qiyās" (with the Qurʾān, Sunna and ijmāʿ one of the four sources): [britannica.com/topic/qiyas](https://www.britannica.com/topic/qiyas?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
5. Sayyid Riḍā Ḥusaynī Nasab, *The Shia Rebuts*, Question 28, "What are the sources of Shiʿi jurisprudence?" (Book, Sunna, consensus, reason), Al-Islam.org: [al-islam.org/node/19446](https://www.al-islam.org/node/19446?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
6. al-Kulaynī, *al-Kāfī*, vol. 1, Book 2, chapter 19 ("Innovations, Personal Opinions and Analogies"), hadith 15, from Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq: the Sunna is not reached by analogy. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī; al-Majlisī, *Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl* 1/197, unknown narrator but comparable to ṣaḥīḥ; as shown on Thaqalayn: [thaqalayn.com/chapter/1/2/19](https://thaqalayn.com/chapter/1/2/19?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
7. al-Nawawī's Forty Hadith 30 ("He has remained silent about some things, out of compassion for you"): [sunnah.com/nawawi40:30](https://sunnah.com/nawawi40:30?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Called ḥasan by al-Nawawī, who attributes it to al-Dāraquṭnī and others, as shown on sunnah.com.
8. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1424 ("Avert the legal penalties from the Muslims as much as possible"): [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1424](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1424?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
9. Intisar A. Rabb, "Islamic Legal Maxims as Substantive Canons of Construction: Ḥudūd-Avoidance in Cases of Doubt", *Islamic Law and Society* 17 (2010): 63 ff., doi:10.1163/092893809X12472107043920\. Her abstract (p. 63) states that "developed juristic works" attribute the maxim to the Prophet as a hadith, whereas early jurists cite it "as an anonymous saying of nonspecific provenance", and that jurists of all periods use it widely; the abstract is reproduced on the [Harvard Law School bibliography](https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/islamic-legal-maxims-as-substantive-canons-of-construction-hudud-avoidance-in-cases-of-doubt?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (article: [Brill](https://doi.org/10.1163/092893809X12472107043920?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com))
10. General Iftāʾ Department, Jordan, fatwa 1313, "A Muslim Must Comply with the Laws of the Country he Lives in", 22 May 2011 (citing 17:34, 8:58 and a report in Abū Dāwūd): [aliftaa.jo](https://aliftaa.jo/research-fatwa-english/1313/rss.aspx?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
11. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, *A Code of Practice for Muslims in the West*, "Dealing with laws in non-Muslim countries: General rules" (trust, the implied guarantee given on entry or residence, false information to authorities, political participation): [sistani.org/english/book/46/2050](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/46/2050/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
12. SBS News, "Government rejects sharia law", 17 May 2011 (Attorney-General Robert McClelland: "There is no place for sharia law in Australian society"): [sbs.com.au](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/government-rejects-sharia-law/kle9t9kzs?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
13. Qur'an 5:48 ("a code of law and a way of life", Arabic *shirʿa* and *minhāj*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/48](https://quran.com/5/48?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
14. Qur'an 42:13 ("He has ordained for you", Arabic *sharaʿa lakum*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/42/13](https://quran.com/42/13?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
15. Qur'an 42:21 ("ordained for them ... which Allah has not authorized"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/42/21](https://quran.com/42/21?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
16. Qur'an 9:122 ("to gain religious knowledge", Arabic *li-yatafaqqahū fī l-dīn*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/9/122](https://quran.com/9/122?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
17. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 71 ("If Allah wants to do good to a person, He makes him comprehend the religion"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:71](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:71?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
18. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, *Shariʿah Law: An Introduction* (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008). The quoted words are from the book's description as reproduced by the retailer Mecca Books, not from Kamali's own text, which I have not checked: [meccabooks.com](https://www.meccabooks.com/products/shari-ah-law-an-introduction?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
19. Wael B. Hallaq, *Sharīʿa: Theory, Practice, Transformations* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), as reviewed by Iza Hussin, *American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences* 27, no. 2 (2010): 100–104\. The review summarises Hallaq's account of the modern state and codification (citing his pp. 359–360) and quotes family law as "the last fortress of the Shari'a to survive the ravages of modernisation" (his p. 446); not checked against the book itself: [ajis.org](https://ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/1328?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) ([PDF](https://ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/download/1328/597?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com))
20. Qur'an 4:59 (obey Allah, the Messenger and those in authority; refer disputes back). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/4/59](https://quran.com/4/59?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
21. Qur'an 16:44 (the Prophet to explain what was revealed). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/16/44](https://quran.com/16/44?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
22. Qur'an 59:7 ("Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/59/7](https://quran.com/59/7?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
23. Qur'an 4:65\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/4/65](https://quran.com/4/65?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
24. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7288 ("if I order you to do something, then do of it as much as you can"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:7288](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7288?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
25. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1337 (Hajj every year? "If I were to say Yes, it would become obligatory"): [sunnah.com/muslim:1337](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1337?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
26. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ijmāʿ" ("the universal and infallible agreement of either the Muslim community as a whole or Muslim scholars in particular"): [britannica.com/topic/ijma](https://www.britannica.com/topic/ijma?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
27. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 2167 ("Allah will not gather my Ummah upon deviation"): [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2167](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2167?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
28. Sunan Ibn Mājah 3950 ("My nation will not unite on misguidance"): [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:3950](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:3950?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
29. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Shāfiʿī" (Hadith as the major basis, qiyās where no clear directive; ijmāʿ "accepted but not stressed"): [britannica.com/topic/Shafiiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shafiiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
30. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ẓāhirīyah" (rejected qiyās and raʾy, "looked askance at consensus"; Ibn Ḥazm): [britannica.com/topic/Zahiriyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zahiriyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
31. Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, *The Epistle on Legal Theory* (*al-Risāla*), ed. and trans. Joseph E. Lowry (New York: NYU Press, Library of Arabic Literature, 2013): [muse.jhu.edu/book/27425](https://muse.jhu.edu/book/27425?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
32. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3592 (Muʿādh sent to Yemen: Book, Sunna, then his own judgement): [sunnah.com/abudawud:3592](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3592?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
33. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7352 (a judge who strives and is right has two rewards, and if wrong, one): [sunnah.com/bukhari:7352](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7352?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
34. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1716a (the same report from ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ): [sunnah.com/muslim:1716a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1716a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
35. Qur'an 4:83 ("those with sound judgment among them", Arabic *alladhīna yastanbiṭūnahu*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/4/83](https://quran.com/4/83?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
36. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ḥanafī school" ("extensive reliance on systematic reasoning (raʾy) in the absence of precedent"): [britannica.com/topic/Hanafiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hanafiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
37. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Istiḥsān" (al-Shāfiʿī forbade it; the followers of Abū Ḥanīfah treated it as a form of analogy): [britannica.com/topic/istihsan](https://www.britannica.com/topic/istihsan?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
38. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mālikī school" (Medinese community practice, ʿamal, as the lens on the Qurʾān and Hadith): [britannica.com/topic/Maliki-school](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maliki-school?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
39. Faraz Rabbani, "How Are the Actions of Morally Responsible Individuals Categorized?", SeekersGuidance, 20 October 2010 (the Ḥanafī eight: farḍ, wājib, confirmed sunna, mustaḥabb, mubāḥ, makrūh tanzīhan, makrūh taḥrīman, ḥarām): [seekersguidance.org](https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-counsel/the-rulings-of-the-sacred-law/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
40. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1726 ("what He was silent about ... He has pardoned"; al-Tirmidhī and al-Bukhārī thought the version stopping at Salmān more correct): [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1726](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1726?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḥasan by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com. Al-Tirmidhī's own comment is given there.
41. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3800 (Ibn ʿAbbās: "what he said nothing about is allowable"): [sunnah.com/abudawud:3800](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3800?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded "ṣaḥīḥ in chain" by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com. It is Ibn ʿAbbās's own statement.
42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 52 ("Both legal and illegal things are evident but in between them there are doubtful things"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:52](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:52?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
43. Qur'an 16:116 ("This is lawful, and that is unlawful"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/16/116](https://quran.com/16/116?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
44. Qur'an 5:101\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/101](https://quran.com/5/101?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
45. Qur'an 2:185 ("Allah intends ease for you"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/185](https://quran.com/2/185?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
46. Qur'an 22:78 ("no hardship in the religion"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/22/78](https://quran.com/22/78?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
47. Qur'an 2:286\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/286](https://quran.com/2/286?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
48. Qur'an 7:157 ("relieves them from their burdens"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/7/157](https://quran.com/7/157?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
49. Qur'an 21:107\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/21/107](https://quran.com/21/107?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
50. Qur'an 2:173 (necessity). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/173](https://quran.com/2/173?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
51. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 69 ("Facilitate things to people ... and do not make it hard for them"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:69](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:69?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
52. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3560 (he chose the easier of two matters as long as it was not sinful): [sunnah.com/bukhari:3560](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:3560?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
53. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, *Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn ʿan rabb al-ʿālamīn*, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām Ibrāhīm (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1991), 3/11, in the chapter on fatwas changing with time and place: فإن الشريعة مبناها وأساسها على الحكم ومصالح العباد في المعاش والمعاد، وهي عدل كلها، ورحمة كلها، ومصالح كلها، وحكمة كلها, as shown on Shamela: [shamela.ws/book/11496/607](https://shamela.ws/book/11496/607?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). English translation by Abu Amina Elias, "Ibn Qayyim on Sharia: Islam is based on justice, mercy, wisdom", Daily Hadith Online, 7 July 2012: [abuaminaelias.com](https://abuaminaelias.com/dailyhadithonline/2012/07/07/ibn-qayyim-maqasid-al-shariah/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
54. AbdulHameed Badmas Yusuf, "On the Limitation and Openendedness of the Shariʿah's Necessary Universals: A Perspective", *American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences* 33, no. 2 (2016): 50–68 (al-Ghazālī's five in *al-Mustaṣfā*, pp. 51–52; Ibn ʿĀshūr, pp. 52, 63; critiques, p. 60), doi:10.35632/ajis.v33i2.233: [ajis.org](https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/233?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
55. Ebrahim Moosa, "Shāṭibī, Abū Isḥāq", in *The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law*, Oxford Islamic Studies Online (d. 1388; *al-Muwāfaqāt*; necessities, needs and improvements; ʿAbduh and Riḍā): [PDF](https://ebrahimmoosa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sh%C4%81%E1%B9%AD%C4%ABb%C4%AB-Ab%C5%AB-Is%E1%B8%A5%C4%81q-Oxford-Islamic-Studies-Online.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
56. Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr, *Treatise on Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah*, trans. and annotated by Mohamed El-Tahir El-Mesawi (Islamic Book Trust / IIIT): [ibtbooks.com](https://ibtbooks.com/shop/treatise-on-maqasid-al-shariah/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
57. al-Nawawī's Forty Hadith 32 ("There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm"): [sunnah.com/nawawi40:32](https://sunnah.com/nawawi40:32?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Called ḥasan by al-Nawawī, who notes Mālik's mursal version and "other chains ... that strengthen one another", as shown on sunnah.com.
58. Sunan Ibn Mājah 2340 and 2341 (the same words, from ʿUbāda ibn al-Ṣāmit and from Ibn ʿAbbās): [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2340](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2340?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Both chains graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
59. Qur'an 5:1 ("Honour your obligations", Arabic *awfū bi-l-ʿuqūd*). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/1](https://quran.com/5/1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
60. Qur'an 17:34 ("Honour ˹your˺ pledges"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/17/34](https://quran.com/17/34?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
61. Qur'an 2:282 (writing down debts and contracts). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/282](https://quran.com/2/282?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
62. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1352 ("the Muslims will be held to their conditions, except the conditions that make the lawful unlawful"): [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1352](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1352?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
63. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3594 ("Muslims are on (i.e. stick to) their conditions"): [sunnah.com/abudawud:3594](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3594?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
64. Qur'an 16:90\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/16/90](https://quran.com/16/90?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
65. Qur'an 4:58\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/4/58](https://quran.com/4/58?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
66. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2363 (grafting the palms: "You have better knowledge (of a technical skill) in the affairs of the world"): [sunnah.com/muslim:2363](https://sunnah.com/muslim:2363?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
67. Qur'an 24:2\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/24/2](https://quran.com/24/2?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
68. Qur'an 5:38\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/38](https://quran.com/5/38?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
69. Qur'an 24:4 (four witnesses). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/24/4](https://quran.com/24/4?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
70. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1691a (ʿUmar on stoning): [sunnah.com/muslim:1691a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1691a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
71. Qur'an 2:178 (retaliation for murder; pardon by the victim's guardian and blood-money). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/178](https://quran.com/2/178?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
72. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6789 (the threshold of a quarter of a dinar for theft): [sunnah.com/bukhari:6789](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6789?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
73. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1695a (Māʿiz told to "go back, ask forgiveness of Allah"): [sunnah.com/muslim:1695a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1695a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
74. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6824 ("Probably you have only kissed (the lady), or winked, or looked at her?"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:6824](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6824?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
75. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4376 ("Forgive the infliction of prescribed penalties among yourselves"): [sunnah.com/abudawud:4376](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4376?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
76. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3475 (the Makhzūmī woman; "if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad stole, I would cut off her hand"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:3475](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:3475?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
77. Sunan Ibn Mājah 2545 ("Ward off the legal punishments as much as you can"): [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2545](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2545?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
78. Intisar A. Rabb, *Doubt in Islamic Law: A History of Legal Maxims, Interpretation, and Islamic Criminal Law* (Cambridge University Press, 2015), as summarised by Elias Saba, "The Art of Not Punishing", *Books & Ideas* (Ẓāhirī and early Ḥanbalī opposition; the same trend between tradition-oriented and rationalist Shiʿi jurists; the spread of "doubt jurisprudence"); not checked against the book itself: [PDF](https://mail.laviedesidees.fr/IMG/pdf/20160111%5Fthe%5Fart%5Fof%5Fnot%5Fpunishing.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
79. Qur'an 16:43 ("ask those who have knowledge"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/16/43](https://quran.com/16/43?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
80. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, chapter one, "Following a Jurist (Taqlīd)", rulings 1–3 and 6: [sistani.org/english/book/48/2117](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2117/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
81. Liyakat Takim, "The Marjaʿiyya and the Juristic Challenges of the Diaspora", *Australian Journal of Islamic Studies* 2, no. 3 (2017): 40–54 (al-Sīstānī: abide by the laws of the land; al-Khūʾī: forbidden to disobey them; Faḍlallāh: a visa is a contract), pp. 43–47: [ajis.com.au](https://ajis.com.au/index.php/ajis/article/download/57/47/111?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
82. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Fatwa" (authoritative but "generally not treated as binding judgments"): [britannica.com/topic/fatwa](https://www.britannica.com/topic/fatwa?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
83. Australian Bureau of Statistics, "2021 Census shows changes in Australia's religious diversity", media release, 28 June 2022 (Islam 813,392 people, 3.2 per cent): [abs.gov.au](https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-shows-changes-australias-religious-diversity?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
84. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2645 ("I am not responsible for any Muslim who stays among polytheists"): [sunnah.com/abudawud:2645](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2645?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī except for the sentence about the blood-money, as shown on sunnah.com.
85. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2783 ("There is no Hijra ... after the Conquest, but Jihad and good intention remain"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:2783](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2783?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
86. Dar al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya, fatwa 4702, "Ḥukm al-iqāma bi-bilād ghayr al-muslimīn" (residing in non-Muslim countries), Shawqī ʿAllām, 2 January 2019 (Arabic): [dar-alifta.org/ar/fatwa/details/14959](https://www.dar-alifta.org/ar/fatwa/details/14959/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
87. Islam Q&A, answer 13363, "Can Muslims settle in kaafir countries for the sake of a better life?", 19 April 2003 (conditional view; quotes Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī, Ibn Ḥajar, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and the Standing Committee): [islamqa.info/en/answers/13363](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/13363?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
88. Andrew F. March, "Are Secularism and Neutrality Attractive to Religious Minorities? Islamic Discussions of Western Secularism in the 'Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities' (Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat) Discourse", *Cardozo Law Review* 30, no. 6 (2009): 2821–2854: [SSRN 1346061](https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1346061?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
89. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7144 (listen and obey "as long as his orders involve not one in disobedience"): [sunnah.com/bukhari:7144](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7144?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
90. Qur'an 60:8\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/60/8](https://quran.com/60/8?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
91. Qur'an 5:8\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/8](https://quran.com/5/8?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
92. Australian Law Reform Commission, *Multiculturalism and the Law* (ALRC Report 57), tabled April 1992, checked against the report itself: para 1.18 (multicultural policies "require all Australians to accept the basic structures and principles of Australian society"), 1.24 ("Separate laws unacceptable"), 5.11 (bigamy "punishable by up to five years imprisonment"), 5.12 (civil and religious marriages recognised) and 5.42 with Recommendation 19 (protection for a person whose spouse refuses to do what is necessary to effect a religious divorce; a majority recommendation, Justice Nygh dissenting): [alrc.gov.au](https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/multiculturalism-and-the-law-alrc-report-57/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (full text [PDF](https://www.alrc.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/alrc57.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com))
93. *Marriage Act 1961* (Cth), s 94(1): "A person who is married shall not go through a form or ceremony of marriage with any person. Penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years." Compilation No. 34 (C2026C00129), compilation date 28 March 2026: [legislation.gov.au](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C1961A00012/latest/text?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
94. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Submission No. 81 to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, Inquiry into Multiculturalism in Australia, 4 April 2011 ("multiculturalism should lead to legal pluralism"): [aph.gov.au](https://aphref.aph.gov.au/house/committee/mig/multiculturalism/subs/sub81.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
95. Ghena Krayem, *Islamic Family Law in Australia: To Recognise or Not to Recognise* (Melbourne University Publishing, 2014), Islamic Studies Series 16: [mup.com.au](https://www.mup.com.au/books/islamic-family-law-in-australia/9780522864533?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
96. Pew Research Center, *The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society*, chapter 1, "Beliefs About Sharia", 30 April 2013: [pewresearch.org](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
97. Qur'an 5:44\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/44](https://quran.com/5/44?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
98. Qur'an 2:256\. Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2/256](https://quran.com/2/256?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
99. Abū Isḥāq al-Shāṭibī, *al-Muwāfaqāt*, ed. Abū ʿUbayda Mashhūr ibn Ḥasan Āl Salmān (Dār Ibn ʿAffān, 1997), 5/193–194 (istiḥsān "in the school of Mālik" as acting on a particular interest against a general proof) and 5/198 (Aṣbagh, from Ibn al-Qāsim, reporting Mālik: "nine-tenths of knowledge is istiḥsān"), as shown on Shamela: [shamela.ws/book/11435/2484](https://shamela.ws/book/11435/2484?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
100. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, *al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir* (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), p. 60 (the maxim as "our school"; Abū Ḥanīfa's contrary default; the report of Abū Thaʿlaba via al-Ṭabarānī), as shown on Shamela: [shamela.ws/book/21719/58](https://shamela.ws/book/21719/58?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
101. Ibn Taymiyya, *Majmūʿ al-fatāwā*, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qāsim (Medina: King Fahd Complex, 2004), 29/16–17 (worship rests on what is prescribed; in customs "the default is pardon"), as shown on Shamela: [shamela.ws/book/7289/14272](https://shamela.ws/book/7289/14272?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
102. Qur'an 5:45 ("for wounds equal retaliation ... whoever waives it charitably, it will be atonement for them"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/5/45](https://quran.com/5/45?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
103. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6880 (the closest relative of someone killed may choose blood money or retaliation): [sunnah.com/bukhari:6880](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6880?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
104. Ibn Kathīr, *Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm*, on 2:178 (the pardon as the victim's relatives accepting blood money, with Ibn ʿAbbās's explanation), abridged English translation as shown on quran.com: [quran.com/2:178/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir](https://quran.com/2:178/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
105. *Family Law Act 1975* (Cth), s 6, "Polygamous marriages": a polygamous union entered into outside Australia "shall be deemed to be a marriage" for the purpose of proceedings under the Act. Compilation No. 101 (C2025C00341), compilation date 10 June 2025: [legislation.gov.au](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A00275/latest/text?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)

Related reading

- [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/)
- [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/)
- [The Companions](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/companions/)
- [Following a Madhhab](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/following-a-madhhab/): taqlīd, ijtihād and how ordinary Muslims follow a school
- [Schools of Thought](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/): the Sunni schools, the Jaʿfarī school and the rest
- [How a Hadith Is Judged](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-a-hadith-is-judged/): what the gradings in the sources mean
- [Riba: A Study in Evidence](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/riba-a-study-in-evidence/): one Sharia question argued out in full
- [Halal Super in Australia](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/halal-super-in-australia/): Sharia and Australian financial law side by side
- [Character (Akhlāq) and Iḥsān](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/character-and-ihsan/): the inward side the rulings serve
- [Family, Neighbours and Community](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/family-and-community/): the rights of others