General Misunderstandings on Sharia Law

There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding of what sharia law actually is. Sharia law is the law meant to be followed by the believer. It does not apply onto non-believers within the community. It comes with the ordainment to pray and fast, etc.

Regarding verses ordering the hands of thieves to be cut, scholars have interpreted it to mean "cut the means for the thieves to steal by imprisoning them" or, better yet, "get rid of the issue that caused the person to steal," such as during the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab when a person was let go for stealing because the area he lived in was suffering from poverty and the caliph knew he had no choice but to steal.

Women can live free lives. The Quran makes no judgment on that. People have to learn to make a difference between societal laws and ritualistic laws within the sharia. Societal laws are laws that vary by time and place because when the sharia was revealed it was revealed as a constitution for the early Muslim community of Medina who had just come together to form their own organized society. The societal laws within the sharia are subjective to the date and place of where they were revealed. Hence, women needing a mahram to travel because they did not have the ability to protect themselves then and there were many rapists and looters at large out on the highway. Nowadays, we have many women who know how to take care of themselves as well as the police who can be summoned at the press of a button. It is ritualistic law that has any barring on your salvation as would the ruling to pray during the day or night or fast during Ramadan. No-one dying while traveling without a mahram will be questioned for it as one would be questioned for missing the daily prayers or an important day of fasting.

Homosexuality is considered a sin by the mainstream interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah but
even then, scholars agree, there is no specific punishment for homosexual intercourse. However, I am going to
have to disappoint you by saying, homosexual marriage is not sanctioned by Islam and thus a homosexual person is committing zina when having sex i.e. having unlawful sex, and thus would be punished as a zani for the action. There is a catch though. In order to punish one who commits zina there needs to be four witness of ideal character who has seen the crime happening but any witness who sees such a deed is not considered to be of ideal character, therefore it is a catch-22 designed to protect the zani, so that he may repent for the transgression in privacy. This is why there is no concept of seeking repentance through confession to a higher human authority figure in Islam.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria