Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

Key Te r m s 3 5 5Semitic (8)A language family that includes a number of major ancient languages, such asAkkadian, and a number of other languages spoken today, including Arabicand Hebrew. However, at present the highest concentration of different livingSemitic languages in the world is found in Ethiopia.Shafi’i (1)One of the four established schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence (f i q h) .Shafi’is attribute the origins of their legal reasoning methodology to al-Shafii’i(d. 820).Shahada (1)The profession of faith, the first of the Five Pillars of Islam: “There is no godbut God, and Muhammad is his messenger.”Shari’a (3, 4, 7, 9)A term commonly used to refer to Islamic law, broadly inclusive of both commandsand prohibitions relating to the proper worship of God and to regulatingpersonal interactions with others. Understandings of the s h a r i ’ a are determinedby established schools of law (f i q h) , which follow methods of legal reasoningbased upon specific disciplines of interpreting the Q u r ’ a n , h a d i t h , scholarly consensus,and reasoning by analogy. S u n n i scholars generally follow one of the fourestablished schools of law (m a d h h a b) : H a n a f i , Maliki, Shafi’i, and H a n b a l i . I t h-n a ’ a s h a r i scholars add the teachings of the I m a m s as another source of law, andthey stress the need for continual i j t i h a d , maintaining that to correctly follow thes h a r i ’ a each person must follow the rulings of a living m u j t a h i d .In the modern period, popular calls for the implementation of the shari’acontinue to attract support in various Muslim societies around the world. Inmost cases, however, these movements tend to conceive of the shari’a not as adivine way that must be continually interpreted through the exertions of speciallytrained scholars but, rather, as a static and formalized code of law withstraightforward penalties for various stipulated infractions. In this, they tendto assume a model of law that is more deeply informed by modern Westernconceptions of law and society than by classical Islamic ideals.Shaykh (1, 4, 8)A term, Arabic for “elder,” used in various Muslim societies to refer to men inpositions of authority, from tribal leaders to teachers and S u f i masters. Thefeminine form of this word, when used, is s h a y k h a .Shi’aSee S h i ’ i t e