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The Islamic Basis of Society

Ihe religious political, social, domestic and private life of those who
profess Islam. "57 This collection of principles for all affairs of life,
sharl'ah, was compiled from all the passages of the Koran which
relate to the behaviour of man in respect to God and to his fellow-
men, and was supplemented by the traditions (sunnah).50 This very
wide role of sharl'ah does not, however, concern a person’s religious
feeling and the individual’s inner consciousness of God’s existence
and is therefore not quite co-extensive with the meaning of the word
Islam itself.
To be a Muslim implies that one has knowledge of all the basic
aspects of sharl'ah. This knowledge is not necessarily acquired
through reading and studying; because sharl'ah relates to all
activities of man, this knowledge is handed down from one
generation to the next and is the essential, formative agent of the
society into which a person in the Trucial Slates is born. The common
knowledge, understanding and acceptance of God’s laws has been
one of the fundamental reasons for the cohesion of the society in this
area. The verbatim application of the totality of sharl'ah was not
feasible in countries, societies, peoples and ages which were different
from that of the Hijaz during the Prophet’s lifetime. The concept of
sharl'ah as the one and only code of conduct and of law became
limited for practical reasons; and eventually it came to be understood
as a system of legal pronouncements for certain matters only, and
operating parallel with traditional law, Stale law and other sources
of law and jurisdiction.
Shari'ah as a source of law for formal jurisdiction
In this narrow sense sharl'ah is now understood in most Islamic
States as the law which is applied by the qudah of the special
sharl'ah courts in the cases which these courts are entitled to handle,
that is, cases concerning marriage, divorce, inheritance and similar
matters.
Until relatively recently no law courts of any kind existed in this
area; the traditional tribal society turned to the family elders,
shaikhs, walis, Rulers or qudah to obtain justice.59 At these different
levels of jurisdiction the deliberations of the adjudicator and the
attitude of the parties to the verdict were all based on the sharl'ah and
the customary tribal law fur/), often supplemented by a Ruler’s
decree. Only at the level of a qadi specially employed by a Ruler was
the division between the formalised and codified sharl'ah and any
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