Development of Jurisprudence ••• 109Muhammad's companions gradually gave way to arbiters and judges who
knew the laws and procedures of older, established empires. As the umma
grew and more disputes arose about people's rights and duties within this
hybrid society, both the leaders and the public realized that the laws of
Islam must be made clear, uniform, organized, acceptable to most Muslims,
and enforceable. By the time the Abbasids took power in 750, Muslims were
studying the meaning of the Quran, the life of Muhammad, and the words
and deeds ascribed to him by those who had known him. Thus evolved a
specifically Islamic science of right versus wrong, or jurisprudence. Its Ara¬
bic name, fiqh, originally meant "learning," and even now Muslims see a
close connection between the fuqaha (experts on the Shari'a) and the ulama
(the Muslim religious scholars, or literally "those who know").
Sources of the Law
Historians of Islam see in the Shari'a elements taken from many ancient le¬
gal systems, but Muslims customarily view their law as having four, or at
most five, main sources: the Quran, the sunna of Muhammad, interpretation
by analogy, consensus of the umma, and (for some) judicial opinion. Strictly
speaking, only the first two are tangible sources. The Quran is the record of
God's revealed words to Muhammad. It contains many commandments and
prohibitions, as well as value judgments on the actions of various people in
history. Here are some examples. The Quran lays down explicit rules, obeyed
by all Muslims up to modern times, for divorce (2:226-238), contracting
debts (2:281-283), and inheriting property (4:11-17). When it describes the
wickedness of the dwellers in Sodom (7:78-82), its message is implicit: Their
acts are unlawful for Muslims. But the variety of human actions far exceeds
what the Quran could cover. It might command people to pray, but only
Muhammad's example taught Muslims how to do so.
The Prophet's sunna was broader than the Quran, but Muslims had to
avoid certain pitfalls in order to use it as a source for the Shari'a. How could
they be sure that a certain act had been committed or enjoined by the
Prophet? There had to be a hadith (oral report) that specified that he had
done it or said it. The hadith would have to be validated by a chain of re¬
porters (isnad). The recorder of the hadith would have to say who had
reported this new information, and who had told his informant, and who
had told him, and so on back to the person who had witnessed the action
or saying in question. The isnad served the function of a source footnote in
a term paper; it authenticated the information by linking it to an estab¬
lished authority. As the hadiths were not written down until more than a