What is Sharia?

$225.00

The sharia promotes freedom, ease, happiness, and prosperity. It is beautiful. See this for yourself through a practical and contextualized study of the rules of purification, prayer, zakat, fasting, hajj, fair trade, gambling, halal mortgages, halal jobs, falling in love, getting married, birth control and abortion, raising children, respecting parents, getting divorced, food ingredients, animal rights, death and inheritance, judicial procedures, government, citizenship, war, and international law. Grasp the hidden wisdoms of the divine command, respond to objections raised by Islamophobes, and acquire the worldview-altering skill of analyzing human actions through the lens of moral responsibility to God. (Students will choose to learn the course material according to the Hanafi or the Shafii schools, or both.)

25 - 30 hours of instruction, spread out over 10 weekly live sessions (1 - 2 hours) and supplementary recorded lessons (all live classes will be recorded for later viewing)
Unlimited live question-and-answer during and after the live sessions
Course discussion forum for further question-and-answer outside of live class hours
Optional midterm and final exam

Start Date: October 16

End Date: December 18

Weekly Live session timings - Saturday 6 pm UTC

PLEASE NOTE:
This course assumes that students can prove the existence of God and the genuine messengerhood of the Prophet Muhammad (God bless him and give him peace). If you are unfamiliar with these arguments, you should take Why Islam is True first (or concurrently with this course).

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Syllabus

Week 1 (Modules 1 and 2)

1. WHOSE SHARIA?

This course begins where the course “Why Islam is True” ends— there is clear evidence that (a) God exists, (b) the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) is His messenger, and (c) that he taught us a sacred law (sharia). But who defines that sharia? You? Me? Anyone who knows some Arabic? ISIS? Or the Four Imams? And why?

2. YOUR GREATEST GOOD DEED IS IN YOUR HEART

Your key to Paradise is the faith (iman) that’s in your heart, and that is beautiful. Learn how the sharia is based on an inward trust in divine grace and see that the sharia is a beautiful and easy consequence of a beautiful and easy-going heart that loves a beautiful God who loves ease.

Week 2 (Module 3)

3. THE JOY OF WORSHIPPING THE ALL-MERCIFUL (AND ITS DETAILS)

Worshiping a slave-driver brings misery but worshiping God brings joy. Learn how to realize the inward beauty of the daily prayers and how to express that through the details of its outward requirements—the integrals and invalidators of wudu, ghusl, individual prayers, and group prayers, with a special focus on the Friday prayer.

Week 3 (Modules 4, 5, and 6)

4. SPIRITUALITY VS. MATERIALISM

The inward purpose of Ramadan is to teach us that our souls are nourished when we subject ourselves to a little bit of hunger for the sake of God. Learn how the spiritual meanings of this ancient rite of fasting infuse the outward details of its integrals, sunnas, and invalidators.

5. ELIMINATING POVERTY

The sharia is supposed to soften our hearts. One of the ways it does that is by requiring us to give a little bit of regular charity (and encouraging us to give more). Learn how, if we all paid our zakat, we could eliminate poverty. Then zoom in on the details of exactly how to pay zakat and who to pay it to.

6. ONE GOD. ONE UMMA. ONE HAJJ.

The Hajj illustrates how the sharia brings us together inwardly in brotherly love and outwardly in shared worship. Hamza Karamali explains how we express our slavehood to God through our brotherhood with other Muslims and then details the rites of Hajj and the actions that are unlawful during pilgrim sanctity (ihram).

Weeks 4 & 5 (Modules 7, 8, and 9)

7. HOW TO TRADE FAIRLY (AND WHAT IS GAMBLING)

The sharia forbids gambling because it is unfair. Study the Quranic concept of fair trade. Then use that to determine the validity and invalidity of a variety of modern transactions (with a special focus on e-commerce).

8. BANKS, INTEREST, AND MORTGAGES

Every year, the gap between the rich and the poor increases because the world economy runs on debt. Hamza Karamali takes you into the world of Islamic banking and helps you imagine what an interest-free economy might look like.

9. WHAT MAKES A JOB HALAL?

It is no longer possible to completely avoid haram money. But living in the modern economy requires us to earn a living and then spend it to fulfill our needs. Learn how contemporary scholars have applied the sharia to provide reasonable solutions.

Weeks 6 & 7 (Modules 10, 11, and 12)

10. HOW FAMILIES BRING JOY (AND HOW THINGS SOMETIMES GO WRONG)

The sharia emphasizes keeping family ties because loving homes are havens for children and parents, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters—and the extended family. But sometimes the sharia is misused to justify authoritarianism and hostility. Learn to tell the difference and then use that to understand how parents should raise their children and what it means for children to respect their parents.

11. LOVE, MARRIAGE, BIRTH CONTROL (AND ABORTION)

The purpose of marriage is love, friendship—and children. Learn how modern culture replaces marriage with gratification, leading to incalculable harms for children (even before they are born), women, and men. Then use that to understand gender relations, modest clothing, and how exactly to make a marriage contract (and why you can do it yourself without an imam).

12. DIVORCE, CUSTODY, AND ALIMONY

Emotional breakups. Bitterness. Regret. Lawyers. Justice. Learn about the different kinds of divorce, when they should be pursued, their financial consequences, what happens to the children, and how our joyful slavehood to God helps resolve some of our most difficult disagreements.

Week 8 (Modules 13 and 14)

13. HALAL FOOD AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

What makes a burger halal? And why? I love animals. Should I become vegetarian? And what about food ingredients? Gelatin? Medicines? Marijuana? Learn the details and rationale of food rules and imagine what the world would look like if a sharia-centric culture replaced our prevailing burger-consumerism.

14. DEATH AND DIVINELY ORDAINED ESTATE DIVISION

The only property that we take into our graves is our funeral shroud. The rest of our wealth is meticulously distributed by the sharia, which only gives us the right to will a third of our wealth to someone other than the heirs designated by the Quran. Grasp the wisdom of divinely ordained estate division and practice solving simple inheritance cases.

Week 9 (Modules 15 and 16)

15. JUST A JUDGE. NO LAWYERS. AND GOD.

The role of the judge is to resolve disputes as amicably as possible, and to use the force of his authority to prevent stubborn transgression. Compare the ideal sharia-judge—compassionate, selfless, impartial, and wise—with modern judges, examine how lawyers, legislators, and corruption bias modern judicial processes, and grasp how the prevalence of religious ignorance can lead to injustice in the name of sharia.

16. THE NEAR-IMPOSSIBILITY OF SEVERE PUNISHMENTS

To say that the sharia is about stoning and cutting hands is like saying that the US legal system is about death by lethal injection in Texas. Actually, no—death by lethal injection actually takes place but standards of proof for stoning and cutting hands are so high that they should never actually happen at all. And surprisingly, these impossible punishments actually conceal a deep compassion.

Week 10 (Modules 17 and 18)

17. RELIGION, STATES, AND CITIZENSHIP

What is a state and what relation should it have to religion? Modern philosophers have sought answers in light of the Western European struggle against a corrupt and politicized church. And Muslim extremists have abused the concept of the caliphate to justify harsh dictatorships. Learn how the sharia promotes an active and participatory ethical citizenship, both in religious and secular states.

18. WAR, PEACE, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

Compare the Geneva conventions to the rules of war in Sacred Law to see that the goal of studying the rules of war is to regulate war, not to encourage it, and that what failed states need is the restoration of the rule of law, not an invocation of jihad.