The guide's heading, in full: Authority of the Qur'an, Hadith, Sunnah and interpretation of the Ulema.
Four items, and they are in order. A ruling is derived from the text, checked against the Prophet's practice, and worked out by scholars — which is a procedure, not a set of opinions.
Islamic ethical authority. The Qur'an, the Prophet's practice, the scholars — and then two kinds of law.
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Akhlaq: Akhlaq is one of the guide's key concepts and it means ethics — the guide's Theme 5 entry calls it moral conduct and moral principles.
So Islam has a word for the subject itself. Using it, and glossing it once, is a small signal that an answer is working in the tradition's own vocabulary.
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Sharia
- Divine law — the guide's own gloss
- Derived from the Qur'an, the Sunnah and scholarly reasoning
- Worked out through the schools of law
- Covers worship, family law, food, commerce and much else
Qanun
- Secular law — the guide's own gloss
- The guide's examples: votes for women, education, commercial law
- Enacted by states, which Muslim-majority countries are
- Operates alongside sharia, and the relationship differs country by country
Why the pair is examinable: The guide gives family law — marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance — as the example of sharia in practice, and votes for women, education and commercial law as examples of qanun.
So the same state may run religious law for family matters and secular law for everything else. That arrangement is the answer to the Theme 5 question about religion and legal systems, and it varies enormously between countries.
Say which country, or say none: "Islamic law says…" is rarely accurate. Five schools interpret differently, and every Muslim-majority state has made its own arrangement between sharia and qanun.
Either name a school or a country, or describe the range. An unattributed claim about what Islam requires is the commonest error in this part of the course.
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The guide's list of themes: Love for human beings, protection of the weak, respect for elders — and then the harder ones: killing, suicide, marriage, polygamy, divorce, abortion, sexual conduct, dress, and jihad as moral struggle.
The first three are the principles; the rest are where they are applied and where Muslims differ.
The principles
- Love for human beings
- Protection of the weak
- Respect for elders
- These are the guide's own first three, and they are uncontested
Applied in the family
- Marriage, polygamy, divorce
- Family law: marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance
- Governed by sharia in many states
- And interpreted differently by the five schools
Contested
- Abortion, sexual conduct, suicide
- Dress — modesty, and the different types of veiling such as the hijab
- Blasphemy, which the guide lists separately
- Muslims differ; so do the schools and the states
On dress, and the rest of the contested list: The guide's wording is dress (modesty and the issue of different types of veiling, such as the hijab). It asks about a religious principle — modesty — and the range of practices that express it.
Muslim women give a range of reasons for what they wear, and Muslims disagree about what is required. Report the principle, the range and who holds what. Students in the room have a personal stake in this one, and an answer that lectures them is both inaccurate and unkind.
How this is tested. Theme 5 asks what the sources of ethical guidance are, who interprets them, and how core teachings are applied to contemporary issues.
IB-style questionExplain[15 marks]
Explain how Muslims decide what is right.
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