Further reading: Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance
to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and
Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994); Anna Zelkina,
In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the
Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (New York: New
York University Press, 2000).
sharia (Arabic: path to a source of water;
also Persian and Urdu: shariat)
Sharia is the law of Islam based on God’s sovereign
commandments and prohibitions as conveyed by
the qUran, and on the sUnna of Muhammad and
his Companions, as embodied in the hadith. It is
often identified with another concept of Islamic
law—jurisprudence (fiqh). Thus, it can be defined
as both the infallible revealed law of God and the
fallible, ongoing efforts undertaken by human
beings, particularly the Ulama and Muslim judges,
to interpret revelation and apply it to particular
sociohistorical contexts. Like the understanding
of revealed law in rabbinic Judaism, Muslims have
for centuries seen the sharia as a process wherein
jurists and judges debated legal rulings and inter-
pretations in their efforts to apply revelation to all
areas of human conduct. They thought that sharia
should be relevant not only to matters of worship,
but also to family life, dietary laWs, business trans-
actions, crime and pUnishment, warfare, dress,
hospitality, and even the exchange of greetings.
Also, just as following a path to water (the literal
meaning of sharia) entails the nourishment of the
body, following God’s sharia promises material and
spiritual benefits to Muslims. It is the way to win
God’s blessing in this world and salvation in the
aFterliFe. In actual practice, the sharia has under-
gone a complex history of development, interact-
ing with other legal traditions and local cUstomary
laW. One of the chief duties of Muslim ruler was to
uphold the sharia, while the ulama and judges had
the responsibility of studying it, teaching it, and
interpreting it. The centers for their activities were
the madrasas and the courts in all the major cities
found in lands under Muslim rule.
Historically, the sharia has become embodied
in different traditions of Islamic jurisprudence
known as madhhabs (schools, ways). In Sunni
Islam there are four madhhabs: the Malikis, the
Hanafis, the Shafiis, and the Hanbalis. These
schools are not religious sects with different theo-
logical doctrines, however. Since the 10th–11th
century all four have accepted a system of juris-
prudence based on four “roots” (usul al-fiqh). Two
of these are based in revelation—the Quran and
sunna. Two are based on methods of interpreting
revelation—ijmaa (consensus) and qiyas (ana-
logical reasoning). To a greater or lesser degree all
schools have allowed for the derivation of indi-
vidual legal opinions based on reason (ijtihad),
but reason has often been circumscribed by the
forces of tradition and imitation (taqlid) of the
legal authorities of the past. Though the Shia have
tended to follow a more devotional form of Islam
wherein the Imams are held in higher esteem
than the law, they have also developed their own
legal traditions. These bear close resemblance to
the Sunni legal traditions. The legal tradition in
tWelve-imam shiism is known as the Jaafari Legal
School, named after JaaFar al-sadiq (d. 765), the
sixth Imam. It developed two chief branches: the
akhbari school and the UsUli school. The Ismaili
Shia, though often known for their esoteric inter-
pretations of Islam, also follow the sharia, but
under the guidance of their Imam and his agents.
In the distant past there were extremist Shii sects,
the ghulat, which were believed to have claimed
that the sharia had been abrogated.
Today, the sharia is understood in Muslim
nations variously as a basis for law within the
framework of a predominantly secular legal system
modeled after those of western Europe and Britain,
or as applicable to only limited areas of law, espe-
cially marriage, divorce, and inheritance law. This
is one of the results of colonial rule in Muslim
lands during the 19th and 20th centuries. Where
it has occurred—in countries such as Libya, Egypt,
Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Malaysia—a system
of dual courts exists to accommodate the two
traditions of law. Alternately, in countries such as
Saudi Arabia and Iran the sharia stands in ideo-
logical opposition to Euro-American secular law.K 620 sharia