Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
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170 t CHAPTER SEVEN<br />
circles in late Umayyad times, not, however, in support of current<br />
local practices, but often in opposition to them.<br />
In principle, the qadi’s justice was the only justice <strong>for</strong> Muslims—<br />
<strong>and</strong> only <strong>for</strong> Muslims: the dhimmis, the <strong>Jews</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Christians</strong> of the<br />
Abode of <strong>Islam</strong>, rendered justice in their own communities according<br />
to their own laws—<strong>and</strong> no person or class was exempt from it.<br />
No one is above the law in <strong>Islam</strong>. The qadi’s judicial power was<br />
absolute within his own geographical jurisdiction, but as the rulers<br />
of the umma <strong>and</strong> its various successor states began to centralize<br />
the administration of justice, hierarchical arrangements eventually<br />
appeared, from local judges to the gr<strong>and</strong> qadis of major jurisdictions.<br />
The qadi’s powers did not end with rendering judgment on cases<br />
brought be<strong>for</strong>e him. He possessed as well a kind of extraordinary<br />
jurisdiction that extended into such religious matters as superintending<br />
public prayer <strong>and</strong> mosques, the charge of orphans, widows,<br />
<strong>and</strong> the divorced, <strong>and</strong> even such secular matters as finances<br />
<strong>and</strong> administration. But the qadi’s once broad jurisdiction has<br />
shrunk over the centuries. Even under nominally <strong>Islam</strong>ic regimes<br />
there grew a body of secular or civil law, often disguised as one<br />
<strong>for</strong>m or other of executive decree, that progressively narrowed the<br />
qadi’s field to personal law, matters touching on divorce settlements<br />
<strong>and</strong> inheritances, <strong>for</strong> example. The process was hastened in<br />
the early twentieth century when many Middle Eastern regimes<br />
adopted a constitutional base with a full body of explicitly secular<br />
law <strong>and</strong> a secular judiciary, <strong>and</strong> it is in the newer, professedly <strong>Islam</strong>ic<br />
states like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia <strong>and</strong> the <strong>Islam</strong>ic Republic<br />
of Iran that the sharia has been restored to some semblance<br />
of the law of the l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> the qadi reestablished as a primary<br />
judicial authority.<br />
<strong>Islam</strong>ic Morality <strong>and</strong> <strong>Islam</strong>ic Jurisprudence<br />
As a manual of behavior the Quran is obviously incomplete, at<br />
least in the sense that its general principles of morality have not<br />
been drawn out into every one, or indeed many, of the <strong>for</strong>ms that<br />
human behavior might take. A great deal more detailed instruction