The Scope of Shariah

Since long time, the inclusion of all issues and aspects of human life has been the focus of concerns and controversies among theoreticians. In addition to this, what has doubled the urgency of need for discussing this are – though not so moderate-, views expressed in this regard; particularly, when this mere technical and scientific debate gets a political form and style resulting in a baseless non-academic ideas.The author, in this article, has attempted to carry out a neutral discussion taking the Holy Quran, Islamic traditions, and human wisdom into consideration. He concentrates on “the explanation of the scope of Shariah and the role of common tradition” in this regard and points out the following four perspectives:Inclusion, isolation, ambiguity, and moderation. According to the first perspective, there is a rule for any movement or quiescence in the Islamic universal and eternal Shariah. Contrary to this, the isolation perspective emphasizes on the neutrality of Islam’s legislator with regard to the worldly affairs of human being. The third perspective emphasizes that the macro principles are specified by The Supreme legislator without interfering in the micro level of structure and affairs. The fourth perspective has chosen a moderate way emphasizing on the classification of Shariah law into rational and traditional categories and rejecting any area free of revealed rule as well as the classification of religious rules into legal (sharei) and rational categories.