A Personal Note about Islamic Books, Law, etc.

Islamic scholars have over time worked on a number of religious issues, e.g., commentary on the Quran, collection and authenticity of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (known as Hadith (singular) and Ahadith (plural), and fiqh which is the codification of religious rules for everything under the sun. Unfortunately, there is not much material available on the Internet. There are quite a few books, especially in Arabic, which I do not know. However, there is a large body of work, either original or translated from Arabic, in Urdu (my first language) as well. Nowadays, there is lots of material in English also.

I read a lot about Islam (Quran, Hadith, fiqh, etc.) when I was in Pakistan. My Dad has so many books it would be fair to call it a small library. But I don’t have any reference material with me in the US. Therefore, I have to rely on my hazy memory or whatever I can easily find. This is one reason why I hesistate to write about Islamic injunctions. Another reason is that my interests have changed and I am much more interested in history and politics rather than religious text or rulings. Usually my posts about terrorism, honor killings, etc. focus on the politics, culture and morality of the acts rather than whether they are prohibited or not in Islam.

However, I’ll deviate somewhat from these guidelines I have set myself in my series on marriage and later in my posts about slavery. I differ substantially from the traditional viewpoint on both these issues and there is no way for me to make my point without directly putting forth the traditional position of the four major schools of jurispendence (Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal and Imam Malik). Note that these are all Sunni scholars from the first couple of centuries of Islam. I do not know enough about Shiite school of thought to write anything about that.

Since I cannot find much material online (other than the Quran and some Hadith collections), I’ll refer to two websites which answer questions asked of them from people. One of these sites is Understanding Islam, founded by modernist Pakistani Moiz Amjad. The other site is Islam: Questions and Answers where conservative Saudi Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid answers questions on various topics. I don’t endorse either of these websites as containing the correct information on Islamic topics, but I’ll make use of them to show some of the ideas among Muslim scholars.