Editing Sharia (section)

== Etymology and usage ==
=== Contemporary usage ===
The word ''sharīʿah'' is used by Arabic-speaking peoples of the [[Middle East]] to designate a prophetic religion in its totality.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} For example, ''sharīʿat Mūsā'' means law or [[Moses|religion of Moses]] and ''sharīʿatu-nā'' can mean "our religion" in reference to any monotheistic faith.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} Within Islamic discourse, ''šarīʿah'' refers to religious regulations governing the lives of Muslims.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} For many Muslims, the word means simply "justice," and they will consider any law that promotes justice and social welfare to conform to Sharia.{{sfn|Vikør|2014}} Sharia is the first of [[Four Doors]] and the lowest level on the path to [[God in Islam|God]] in [[Sufism]] and in branches of Islam that are influenced by Sufism, such as [[Ismailism]] and [[Alawism]]. It is necessary to reach from Sharia to [[Tariqa]], from there to [[Ma'rifa]] and finally to [[haqiqa]]. In each of these gates, there are 10 levels that the [[dervish]] must pass through.<ref name="Sevim">{{cite journal|last=Sevim|first=Erdem|title=Path to the Universal Self in Haji Baktash Walî: Four Doors – Forty Stations|journal=Spiritual Psychology and Counseling|publisher=Association for Spiritual Psychology and Counseling|volume=1|issue=2|date=1 October 2016|issn=2458-9675|doi=10.12738/spc.2016.2.0014|url=https://spiritualpc.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-0014.pdf|access-date=26 February 2024|archive-date=4 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240304055310/https://spiritualpc.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-0014.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Jan Michiel Otto summarizes the evolutionary stages of understanding by distinguishing four meanings conveyed by the term ''Sharia'' in discourses.{{sfn|Otto|2008|pp=9–10}}
* ''Divine, abstract sharia'': In this sense, Sharia is a rather abstract concept which leaves ample room for various concrete interpretations by humans.
* ''Classical sharia'': This is the body of Islamic rules, principles and cases compiled by religious scholars during the first two centuries after Muhammad, including ''[[Ijtihād]]''<!-- before '[[Ijtihad|the gate of free interpretation' (ijtihad)]] was closed.-->
* ''Historical sharia(s)'': This includes the entire body of all principles, rules, cases and interpretations developed and transmitted throughout a history of more than one thousand years across the entire Muslim world, since the closing of the gate of free interpretation up to the present.
* ''Contemporary sharia(s)'': This contains the full spectrum of principles, rules, cases and interpretations developed and applied at present. Migration, modernisation and new technologies of information and communication have decreased the dominance of the legal schools of classical sharia.

A related term ''{{transliteration|ar|DIN|al-qānūn al-islāmī}}'' ({{lang|ar|{{large|القانون الإسلامي}}}}, Islamic law), which was borrowed from European usage in the late 19th century, is used in the Muslim world to refer to a legal system in the context of a modern state.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=323}}

=== Etymology ===
The primary meanings of the [[Arabic]] word ''šarīʿah'', derived from the root ''š-r-ʕ''.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} The [[lexicographical]] studies records two major areas of the word can appear without religious connotation. In texts evoking a pastoral or nomadic environment, ''šarīʿah'' and its derivatives refers to watering animals at a permanent water-hole or to the seashore. One another area of use relates to notions of stretched or lengthy.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=326}} The word is cognate with the Hebrew ''saraʿ'' שָׂרַע and is likely to be the origin of the meaning "way" or "path".{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=326}} Some scholars describe it as an archaic [[Arabic]] word denoting "pathway to be followed" (analogous to the [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] term [[Halakha]]h ["The Way to Go"]),<ref name="haqq">Abdal-Haqq, Irshad (2006). ''Understanding Islamic Law&nbsp;– From Classical to Contemporary'' (edited by Aminah Beverly McCloud). Chapter 1 ''Islamic Law&nbsp;– An Overview of its Origin and Elements''. [[AltaMira Press]]. p. 4.</ref> or "path to the water hole"<ref name="Hashim1">{{cite book |last1=Hashim Kamali |first1=Mohammad |author-link=Mohammad Hashim Kamali |title=Shari'ah Law: An Introduction |date=2008 |publisher=[[Oneworld Publications]] |isbn=978-1851685653 |pages=2, 14}}</ref><ref name="weiss1998" /> and argue that its adoption as a metaphor for a divinely ordained way of life arises from the importance of water in an arid desert environment.<ref name="weiss1998">Weiss, Bernard G. (1998). ''The Spirit of Islamic Law''. Athens, Georgia: [[University of Georgia Press]]. p. 17. {{ISBN|978-0820319773}}.</ref>

=== Use in religious texts ===
In the Quran, {{transliteration|ar|šarīʿah}} and its cognate {{transliteration|ar|širʿah}} occur once each, with the meaning "way" or "path".{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} <ref>{{qref|45|18}}</ref><ref>{{qref|5|48}}</ref> The word {{transliteration|ar|šarīʿah}} was widely used by Arabic-speaking Jews during the Middle Ages, being the most common translation for the word {{transliteration|he|Torah}} in the 10th-century Arabic translation of the [[Torah]] by [[Saadia Gaon|Saʿadya Gaon]].{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} A similar use of the term can be found in Christian writers.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=321}} The Arabic expression {{transliteration|ar|Sharīʿat Allāh}} ({{lang|ar|شريعة الله}} {{gloss|God's Law}}) is a common translation for {{lang|he|תורת אלוהים}} ({{gloss|God's Law}} in Hebrew) and {{lang|grc|νόμος τοῦ θεοῦ}} ({{gloss|God's Law}} in Greek in the New Testament [Rom. 7: 22]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Ullmann |first=M. |year=2002 |title=Wörterbuch der griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des neunten Jahrhunderts |location=Wiesbaden |page=437 |quote=Rom. 7: 22: '{{lang|grc|συνήδομαι γὰρ τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ θεοῦ}}' is translated as '{{lang|ar|أني أفرح بشريعة الله}}'}}</ref> In Muslim literature, {{transliteration|ar|šarīʿah}} designates the laws or message of a prophet or God, in contrast to {{transliteration|ar|[[fiqh]]}}, which refers to a scholar's interpretation thereof.{{sfn|Calder|Hooker|2007|p=322}}

In older English-language law-related works in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the word used for Sharia was '''''sheri'''''.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Corps de Droit Ottoman|journal=[[Law Quarterly Review]]|volume=21 |publisher=Stevens and Sons|date=October 1905|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8jUbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA443 443]–[https://books.google.com/books?id=8jUbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA444 44]}},  Number LXXXIV "The religious law of the ''Sheri'', of which the ultimate source is the Koran,[...]" – A review of ''[[Corps de Droit Ottoman]]''</ref> It, along with the French variant {{lang|fr|chéri}},<!--Relevant as the Ottoman Empire, in the late 1800s the major Muslim power, had French as its main pan-Christian language and its main language to interact with European foreigners // see the works by Johann Strauss, cited in [[Languages of the Ottoman Empire]]--> was used during the time of the [[Ottoman Empire]], and is from the [[Turkish language|Turkish]] {{lang|tr|şer'(i)}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Strauss |first=Johann |chapter-url=https://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/menalib/download/pdf/2734659?originalFilename=true |year=2010 |chapter=A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the ''Kanun-ı Esasi'' and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages |editor=Herzog, Christoph |editor2=Malek Sharif |title=The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy |location=[[Würzburg]] |pages=21–51 |access-date=15 September 2019 |archive-date=11 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191011233851/https://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/menalib/download/pdf/2734659?originalFilename=true |url-status=live }} ([http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:5-91645 info page on book] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920231333/http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:5-91645 |date=20 September 2019 }} at [[Martin Luther University]]) // Cited:  (PDF p. 41/338) // ""Chéri" may sound ambiguous in French but the term, used in our context for Islamic law (Turkish: şer'(i), is widely used in the legal literature at that time."</ref> borrowed from Arabic ''šarʿ'' which is from the same root as ''šarīʿah''.