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noufalibrahim 7 months ago

Islamic canon law (the Shariah) is derived from primary texts (the Quran and Hadith) and uses interpretive methodologies (like deductive analogy - Qiyas) to derive rulings that are not explicitly discussed in the primary source material. This gives some amount of openness and causes some differences of opinion resulting in multiple schools of thought.

Practicing Muslims rely on books and texts that systematize this knowledge and provide it in a practical form for daily use rather than go to the source material (which can be overwhelming if one wants to find, for example, the ruling on whether a certain action in a specific context is permissible or not). Most Muslim children, as part of their basic religious education, learn the basics of Islamic law and practice from such a book. That's usually enough to go through ones life.

The ruling on representational art is based on this kind of derivation. There are some exceptions (e.g. for educational, security etc. purposes) but they're generally narrowly circumscribed.

Sunni tradition relies primarily on the Quran and 6 books of Hadith (of which the two you've mentioned are the main ones). Shia tradition has a smaller Hadith corpus because of theological differences about the reliability of the chains of narration of the Hadith and hence the derived rulings are very different in some areas. I've generally seen Shia works of art where prophetic companions, angels etc. are pictured but non-realistically (unlike Christian iconography). Some of them blank out the faces but it's not a tradition I'm deeply familiar with so I don't know.

My theory is that the huge emphasis on calligraphy and tesselations in Islamic art is mainly because of this. We don't have (many) paintings and sculptures of religious figures like in the Christian traditions.

noduerme 7 months ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

flir 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

> Guess my religious background.

Protestant? (Based on the emphasis on a personal experience of the text, unfiltered by mediators).

noufalibrahim 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a larger discussion but not really HN material so I'll leave it at that

handfuloflight 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

> you must expect most people to accomplish very little.

Well, yeah—we would expect most Muslims to accomplish little in the space of Islamic jurisprudence as its a whole discipline unto itself.

noduerme 7 months ago | parent [-]

Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life. It strikes me as odd for a system which puts itself forth as a total solution to all issues, and which demands so much in the way of obedience and submission, to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets. Then again, I'm sure that's why my comment was flagged.

handfuloflight 7 months ago | parent [-]

> Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life.

As does secular law. Is it feasible for everyone to become a lawyer? Because that's the analogue.

> to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets.

But that's just not true. You would only assume that if you were not acquainted with the Islamic intellectual tradition. Rather most people simply do not put in the effort that's necessary to develop the rigor and depth required to join the discussion. That's more of a comment on average human nature.