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Spirit of Islam Issue 35 November 2015
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
SHARIAH
AND
DEEN
Circumstantial or Eternal
The Quran
(5: 48)
says:
To every one of you We have ordained a law and a way, and had
God so willed, He would have made you all a single community, but
He did not so will, in order that He might try you by what He has
given you. Vie, then, with one another in doing good works; to God
you shall all return; then He will make clear to you about what you
have been disputing.
T
HE Quran
(42: 13)
says that the
deen
or religion that God has sent
humankind is one and the same and that it has been sent to
every messenger in the same form. Yet, from the above cited
Quranic verse
(5: 48)
, one learns that God had given different messengers
different
shariah
s and different
minhaj
(methodologies of religious
practice).
Here the Quran employs the terms
shirah
and
minhaj
.
Shira
or
shariah
refers to rules of worship, while
minhaj
is religious methodology.
This Quranic verse
(5: 48)
is not to be understood in the absolute sense.
It is not that each prophet’s
shariah
was totally different from that of
the other prophets. The differences were in matters of minor details.
Worship has a spirit or an essence. For instance, according to the
Quran, the essence of
namaz
(five times daily prayer) is humility and
that of
roza
(fasting in the month of Ramazan), is gratitude. While the
inner reality of worship never changes, it has certain external forms,
where there can be variations. Worship is given to one prophet in one
form and to another prophet in another form.
One example of difference in the external form of worship is that of the
qibla
or direction in which prayer is offered. As is known, the Bait ul-
Muqaddas (Jerusalem) was made the
qibla
for the Jews. But the Kaaba,
which is in Makkah, was made the
qibla
for the
ummah
(followers) of
Prophet Muhammad.
As far as
minhaj
or method is concerned, God gave different methods
to His prophets to accommodate the different circumstances. Only