Lesson video

Hi, my name is Miss Speakman on lesson three of 14 of the crime and punishment unit.

and in today's lesson, we'll be looking at Shari'ah Law.

So in this lesson, we're going to consider the question, what is Shari'ah? We're going to learn about the categories of Islamic law, and we're going to learn about the categories of crime within Shari'ah law.

Let's make sure first of all though, please, that we have got everything we need for our lessons.

We've got a pen or pencil, a piece of paper or an exercise book and a different coloured pen for corrections, but also that we've got a nice, clear working space.

So that we've got a nice clear desk.

We have got TV music off.

We've got phone to one side if we're not using it for the lesson.

If we need to get ourselves set up and get ourselves any of those materials, or we need to make sure that we've got nice, clear working space, you can please pause the video now and go and get those things.

And then unpause when you're ready to start learning about Islamic law.

Okay, so let's start off with what is Shari'ah? Cause I think that's the most important thing, isn't it? We've going to have a whole lesson on Shari'ah, we need to know exactly what it is.

Now the word Shari'ah in Arabic means a straight path or a clear well-trodden path to water.

And you might think, why water? And Muslims will often say, well, it's to do with this idea that water means clarity, clearness, that it's like water is vital to life, just as so Shari'ah is vital to a good religious life.

Water is needed to nourish the body.

And so Shari'ah is like the water for the soul and the mind.

The idea that its like a clear instructions on how to live.

Now, Shari'ah is essentially Islamic religious law.

It is law that is derived from a number of sources which we will look at in the moment.

That is the law in many Islamic countries, but also as we'll see, it has some use in the UK too.

Muslims believe that Shari'ah is divinely revealed, it comes from Allah.

It's Allah's law.

Allah's Islamic law, given to humans to use.

And so Muslims belief, because it's from Allah, and Allah doesn't make mistakes, Shari'ah law will never be unjust.

So Shari'ah law can always be trusted as more exactly what Allah wants from human beings, and what they should be following.

So where does Shari'ah law come from? Well, first of all, the biggest source of Shari'ah is the Qur'an.

'Cause this is what Allah has revealed to human beings in this divine text.

But we also see Shari'ah law coming from the Sunnah the Hadith That's the words and sayings of Prophet Muhammad.

So there are instances for example, where the Qur'an says that the Muslims should pray, but it doesn't specify how often and how many times a day, et cetera.

It is the Hadith which, in where Muhammad interpreted and said, this is what it means in the Qur'an.

It means to pray five times a day.

He talks about the fact that if you washed five times a day, you'd be really, really clean.

But of course, if you pray five times a day, that's cleanliness of, you know, spiritually.

That's cleanliness of sins.

Then we have the ijma, which is the consensus of the Ummah.

Essentially, there may be quite a few times where the Qur'an and Sunnah doesn't quite cover what people would want from laws.

If, for example, there may be some things which the Qur'an could not have known about at the time.

So something like certain technological advances or difference in culture and country's laws, et cetera.

And this is where the consensus of the Ummah, the brotherhood, the community of Muslims gets together and decides, well, what we know from the Qur'an and the Hadith.

What do we think the law should be? This idea of the consensus coming together and making sort of a judgement on what they believe should be the correct law derived from perhaps maybe some thoughts of the community.

And then we have Qiyas, which is reasoning.

It's the idea that through our own logic, we can arrive at certain decisions, certain laws.

So for example, the Qur'an and the Hadith don't mention the use of drugs.

But it does mention alcohol.

So alcohol's an intoxicant, is therefore haram, which means forbidden and therefore using the consensus, the ijma.

But also Qiyas which is reasoning.

We can say, well, in Islamic law, in Shari'ah, they can say, well, well, if drugs are also an intoxicant and they take you away from thinking about Allah.

If they stop you from thinking about Allah, then they must also too be haram, forbidden.

So through reasoning, through thinking, well, the Qur'an forbids alcohol which is an intoxicant.

For this reason, if drugs do have the same effect on you, then they also too must be haram.

So Shari'ah law comes from a large number of sources.

The main source being the Qur'an and the Hadith.

But of course, where the Qur'an and hadith don't cover certain things.

This is where we get the ijma, the consensus of the Ummah and Qiyas, which is reasoning.

What I'm going to do is, I'm going to give you some quick fire questions.

So I'm going to read out this question to you, give you three seconds.

I want you to point to your screen or say it out loud when you think you know what the correct answer is.

So Qiyas means consensus or reasoning? Three, two, one.

Good.

That is reasoning.

The idea that through our own logic, we can derive that certain things are permissible or not allowed because of what we have in the Qur'an and the Hadith already.

Next question.

Ijma means consensus or reasoning? Three, two, one.

Good.

It means consensus.

It's the idea that the community, the Ummah, the brotherhood can come to a decision based on discussions they might have.

So then they derive then a law from that.

Well done if you got both of those correct.

So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop up again.

Wait for my camera to appear.

There we go.

So I just want you now, just to test your knowledge on what we've just looked through.

Want you to name for me, please, the four sources of Shari'ah law.

I've given, for you, there are the first two letters or the first letter of the words I am looking for.

So I want you to spend about four minutes on this, and I want you to pause the video now, write down the four sources of Shari'ah law and unpause when you are ready to move on.

Okay.

Are you ready to look at the answers? So I should have Qur'an, Sunnah or Hadith, ijma which is the consensus of the Ummah and Qiyas, which is reasoning.

Well done if you got all four.

If you didn't get all four, can you please pause now and make corrections and then unpause when you're ready to move on.

Okay, brilliant.

What we're going to do now is move on to looking at different categories within Shari'ah laws.

We know where it comes from.

We know what it is.

We now need to sort of break this down.

What does Shari'ah law say about certain actions? How does it categorise human actions? So the categories of human actions within Shari'ah, talk about, essentially they are grouped by, what does Shari'ah law think about certain actions.

So we've got obligatory actions, recommended actions, permitted actions, disliked actions, and forbidden actions, which are haram.

Now obligatory means you have to do it.

So within Shari'ah law, there are some human actions which are obligatory.

They have to do it.

Those will be things like burying the dead in a proper Islamic funeral, doing your five daily prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan.

There are all obligatory actions.

The there are recommended actions.

These are things which you don't get punished for if you don't do them.

But if you do them you may get a reward in the afterlife.

This will be things like, extra prayers, extra charity, extra fasting.

Things done on top of those obligatory actions.

Then there are things which are permitted.

These are things which you don't get punished if you don't do them, but you also don't get rewarded if you do them.

Sort of just lawful normal actions, such as drinking tea, playing sport, eating toast.

Things that just.

We wouldn't say are lawful or non lawful.

They're just things that are permitted.

There's, you know, there's no reward for drinking tea, but there's also no punishment for drinking tea.

And then there are things that are disliked.

Now in the category of Shari'ah law, disliked actions are those actions, which you don't get punished for doing them.

But if you abstain from them, you get rewarded in paradise.

So for example, smoking.

Muslims are allowed to smoke.

So if they smoke, they don't get punished in an afterlife.

But if they refrain from smoking, there are some rewards said to be in paradise for that.

And then there are some actions which are forbidden, haram.

So they're essentially, they are against Shari'ah law.

You can be punished in the afterlife.

There are specific punishments laid out in the Qur'an for many of these actions.

Such as adultery, theft, shirk.

So shirk being where you equate something to the same as Allah.

Since you're saying that Allah has a partner, an equivalent.

So there are different types of human actions within Shari'ah law.

Obligatory, you have to do them.

Prayers, burying the dead in proper Islamic funeral, fasting.

Recommended.

These are things which you do, you get a reward for, but if you don't do them, you don't get punished.

So extra prayers, extra charity, extra fasting.

Permitted things which don't carry a reward or a punishment.

They're just things that we do day to day life.

Drinking tea, playing sports, eating toast.

Disliked things that you don't get punished for doing, but you get rewarded for if you refrained from them, such as smoking.

Forbidden, haram, are things that carry a punishment from the Qur'an within Shari'ah law, which are things that you are told not to do.

You will be punished for them.

Theft, adultery, shirk.

Things like that.

So, we are now going to test how well we know these.

So what we're going to do is I am going to give you some questions.

Then you are going to answer them.

Again you're going to point to the screen when you know the correct answer.

So, which of these actions would be disliked according to Shari'ah law? Drinking alcohol, smoking, shirk, drinking tea.

So which one is disliked.

Three, two, one.

Good.

It's smoking.

Which is where, of course, if you refrain from it, you get rewarded, but you're not punished for smoking.

Which of these actions would be forbidden.

According to Shari'ah law? Drinking alcohol, smoking, shirk, drinking tea.

Three, two, one.

Drinking alcohol and shirk.

Well done if you got both of those.

I tried to trick you a little bit there, to see if you knew that I was looking at two of those.

So both of these actions, drinking alcohol and shirk are forbidden.

Which of these actions would be permitted according to Shari'ah law? Drinking alcohol, smoking, shirk, drinking tea.

Three, two, one.

Good.

It is drinking tea.

So it's allowed.

There's no punishment, no reward.

Which of these actions would be recommended according to Shari'ah law? So it's smoking, drinking tea, extra prayers, the five daily prayers.

Three, two, one.

Good.

It is extra prayers.

They are recommended according to Shari'ah law.

But of course you get rewarded for doing them, but not punished for not doing them.

Which of these actions would be obligatory according to Shari'ah law? Smoking, drinking tea, extra prayers, the five daily prayers.

Three, two, one.

Good.

It is the five daily prayers that are obligatory.

You have to do them, otherwise you're punished for not doing them.

Well done if you got all of those, correct.

What we're now going to do, is having a look at the different categories of crime within Shari'ah law.

Okay, so next, we're going to look at categories of crime within Shari'ah law.

And so these are the categories of like, how serious the crime is when it goes against Shari'ah law.

Or essentially how the Qur'an or perhaps even the Qur'an hasn't given a punishment.

A set punishment within it for these types of crimes.

So we've got unforgivable crimes, forgivable crimes, community crimes, and crimes against the state.

We'll go into more detail in them.

On them in a moment.

Essentially, the main thing is that unforgivable crimes and forgivable crimes, the difference between them is, who can forgive them? From looking at the idea of unforgivable crimes.

You might think, well, this surely means they can never be forgiven.

The difference between unforgivable and forgivable crimes is that humans are only able to forgive, forgivable crimes.

Only Allah can forgive unforgivable crimes.

So what I'm going to do, first of all, is just test you to see if you can remember these four categories.

I'm going to say them again.

Unforgivable, forgivable, community crimes, crimes against the state.

I am going to get you to test whether you can remember those now.

So I would like you please, to name the four categories of crime within the Shari'ah law.

I've given you the first letters of the words.

And I've given you a bit of a hint that the fourth one is four words in total.

So I'd like you to pause the video, please, and see if you can write down the four categories of crime within Shari'ah law.

And then unpause when you are ready.

Okay.

So let's have a look at the answers.

Let's see if you got all of them, correct.

Should have, unforgivable crimes, forgivable crimes, community crimes, crimes against the state.

If you need to make any corrections, please pause the video now and make those corrections.

And then what we're going to do is look at the different types of crime in more detail.

Okay.

Are we ready then? So unforgivable crimes, are said to be unforgivable crimes because only Allah can forgive them.

Human beings cannot forgive these crimes.

They can punish them on earth, but they will still need Allah's mercy and forgiveness in an afterlife, for these types of crime.

These are a crime against Allah.

So Allah has specified in the Qur'an that these are crimes He finds unforgivable and therefore needs his mercy to be forgiven for.

Now, these types of crimes, need a high standard of proof for conviction on earth.

So the Qur'an will specify what punishment needs to be given for that crime.

But then also the level of proof needed for conviction.

So for example, something like adultery, which is seen as an unforgivable crime, would need four witnesses to the act taking place to be considered ready for conviction.

Essentially that you can actually be punished for it.

Some punishments recorded in the Qur'an for these types of crime, would be things like, the death penalty or lashes, whippings, et cetera.

And for theft, the cutting off of the hand.

So unforgivable crimes might be theft, shirk, adultery, drinking alcohol, for example.

All of these would be seen as unforgivable crimes and would therefore need Allah's mercy in order to forgive them.

So, I want you please to spend about two minutes writing down for me, please, two unforgivable I have mentioned, when I was explaining what an unforgettable crime is, please.

You need to pause the video, write down the name of two unforgivable crimes, then unpause when you are ready to move on.

Okay.

Hopefully you've written down two answers.

Here is the list.

Adultery, drinking alcohol, shirk, theft.

Those are four examples of unforgivable crimes, according to the Qur'an and according to Allah.

Now what I'm going to do is, I'm going to give you some multiple choice quickfire questions.

So unforgivable crimes can be forgiven by humans.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That is false.

Unforgivable crimes cannot be forgiven by humans.

Unforgivable crimes can be forgiven by Allah.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That is true.

So unforgivable crimes, while they might say that, unforgivable crimes, it means they cannot be forgiven by humans, but they can be forgiven by Allah.

Well done if you got both of those.

We're now going to have a look at, forgivable crimes within Islam.

We'll just wait for my camera to pop up.

There we go.

So when we will talk about forgivable crimes within Shari'ah law, this is seen as a crime against the individual.

Not against Allah.

There is still some form of punishment recorded in the Qur'an, but the idea is these crimes can be forgiven by humans.

And once a person has served their punishment on earth for this crime, then they can no longer then receive another punishment in the afterlife.

As long as they are remorseful for their actions.

Now, with these punishments recorded in the Qur'an, if someone's found guilty of that crime, they should be punished no more than X amount.

What we mean by this is the Qur'an sets out a punishment of how much up to, someone can be punished.

And the people involved when they are deciding someone's guilty, the victim and the victim's family can decide to punish them up to that amount, but can also choose to have a lesser punishment or to show mercy.

So for example, two forgivable crimes, according to Shari'ah law would be bodily harm or murder.

So let's say that someone was murdered.

The victim's family could choose to have the criminal punished up to the, the top end of having that criminal put to death.

Or could choose a lesser sentence or could choose to forgive them altogether.

So you couldn't go up against, over the punishment that the Qur'an has set.

So for example, with bodily harm, someone could have up to the same thing done to them, but no more than that.

So for example, someone caused you bodily harm, you would not be able to sentence them to the death penalty 'cause that's more than what happened to you.

So with forgivable crimes, these are things like bodily harm and murder as I said.

And once someone has served their punishment, they cannot then be punished again in the afterlife.

So these are seen as forgivable by humans.

So if a human decided to forgive someone for what the criminal has done, then they cannot be punished again.

And again, it's a crime against the individual, against the individual person.

So I'm going to test you again.

Going to spend about two minutes on this.

Can you name for me two forgivable crimes that I have mentioned when I have been talking about forgivable crimes within Shari'ah, please.

Pause the video now, unpause when you're ready to move on.

Okay.

So hopefully we've got an answer.

Should have murder and bodily harm.

Those are the two that I've mentioned as forgivable crimes within Shari'ah law.

Now I'm going to give you again some multiple choice quickfire questions, and then we'll move on to looking at crimes against the state and community crimes.

Shirk is a forgivable crime in Shari'ah.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

False, shirk is an unforgivable crime in Shari'ah law.

If you have served a punishment for a forgivable crime, you will not be punished in the afterlife.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

That is true.

So if you served a punishment for a forgivable crime, Allah does not then punish you again in the afterlife.

Well done if you got both of those, correct.

Let's now move on to looking at community crimes and crimes against the state.

Wait for my camera to appear again.

Okay.

There we go.

So community crimes are a crime which offends the community.

Something that is done, which is not against the individual, nothing that Allah has said that He himself finds an offence and some form of punishment is not recorded in the Qur'an for this.

This is a crime which will offend the community, which in some way.

Sorry.

That in some way will harm the community.

Things like fraud, where you pretend to be someone else to gain money, et cetera.

Antisocial behaviour, which will annoy people, which gets in the way of like, the peace in your community, are examples of community crimes.

The crimes against the community and offends the community.

And so some form of punishment is not recorded in the Qur'an, but Shari'ah law will deal with these sorts of crimes.

Then we have crimes against the state.

These are crimes against the government's laws.

The government that you are.

The government of the country you're living in.

A crime against the state would be anything that goes against the laws in your country.

So a form of punishment is not recorded in the Qur'an for these crimes against the state.

And often people say, well, what's the difference between crime against the state and a community crime? And we often talk about them being quite artificial crimes.

So crimes against the state, because they're artificial laws.

So these types of crimes are offences against human made development.

So for example, it's antisocial behaviour to be hanging around on a street, screaming and running around and driving your car up and down at like midnight, 1:00 AM.

That's going to, you know, it's a crime against the community.

But for things like parking offences, speeding, parking on double yellow lines.

Those are crimes against the state because humans have made those laws.

Because they've made the idea of roads and cars.

And, you know, the crimes such as parking offences and speeding are more to do with like artificially made items and artificially made laws, made on human-made development.

So it's like cars and roads are human-made developments.

Whereas of course human beings, natural occurrences, and so crimes against the community is ones that sort of offend the community and the people, rather than like going against the state laws, for example.

So, what I'd like you to do, please, spend about four minutes on this question.

I went you to name two community crimes and two crimes against the state, please.

So I want you to spend about four minutes on this.

Pause video now, and then unpause when you are ready to move on with looking answers.

Okay, hopefully we are ready for answers.

So two community crimes: fraud and antisocial behaviour.

Crimes against the state: are speeding or parking offences.

You might put like, park on double yellow lines, for example.

So hopefully you got those answers, correct.

If you need to make any corrections, please pause now and make those corrections.

So we're now going to move on to looking at Shari'ah law in the UK.

So we've looked at the types of crime that Shari'ah law categorises, where it comes from, we've looked at different types of human actions and the reasons behind why Muslims would say, some actions are right, some actions are wrong.

We're now going to look at what this looks like in the UK.

So Shari'ah law in the UK cannot work in the same way as it does in Islamic countries.

So some Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, et cetera.

All of their laws will be based on Shari'ah.

So any laws you break will be against Shari'ah law, against Islamic law.

In the UK, Shari'ah law councils cannot operate with criminal laws.

They cannot deal with things like theft.

They cannot deal with murder, et cetera.

So those punishments which will be given as recorded in the Qur'an, cannot be followed through here in the UK.

Shari'ah law councils in the UK are allowed to deal with civil law.

Which means they can deal with things like disputes between private individuals, groups.

They can deal with religious divorce.

They can look at disputed wills.

So essentially they deal with the civil matters, but they cannot deal with the criminal matters.

There are some Muslims who would like to see the implementation of Shari'ah law in the UK.

And there are some Muslims that say, it just wouldn't work 'cause we have to acclimatise to the culture we're living in.

And you might find some Muslims in the UK, not wanting Shari'ah law in the UK whatsoever.

But there are of course, many Islamic countries that do implement Shari'ah law and therefore are allowed to carry out with punishments as recorded in the Qur'an.

What we're going to do is now do a task to bring everything that we've done so far together.

So a longer task, which tests you on what we've done already.

Okay? Are we ready? What I'm going to let you to do, is to pause the video on the next slide to complete your main task, which we'll go through some questions on what we've learned so far about Shari'ah law.

So you've got eight questions here.

They are true or false questions, but for each of them, you needed to decide whether it's true or false.

And then give me the reason why it's true or false.

So what I'd like you to do please, is to pause the video now, write out the sentences, write whether it's true or false.

And then give me a reason why.

Unpause when you're ready to go through corrections, please.

If you can see the slider, I'm assuming then you are ready for corrections.

So please have your different coloured pen out, ready for corrections.

If you're not quite ready, then please rewind the video, continue with your questions, then come back to us when you're ready to start going through the answers.

So the first four, Shari'ah law only comes from the Qur'an, is false because there were four sources of Shari'ah law.

All Muslim should follow Shari'ah, is true, because Shari'ah comes from Allah and it's the well-trodden path.

There are four sources of Shari'ah, is true, 'cause they are the Qur'an, Sunnah, Hadith, ijma and Qiyas.

And there are four categories of crime in Shari'ah, is true because they are unforgivable, forgivable, community and crimes against the state.

If you need to make any corrections here for me, please, can you please pause the video now and make those corrections before we start going through the second set of answers.

So, question five, prayer is not mentioned in the Shari'ah, is false because it's an obligatory human action.

So part of the five daily prayers and extra prayers are recommended.

Shari'ah councils in the UK can make legal decisions, are false, because they can only deal with civil matters.

Theft is always wrong in Islam, is true, because theft is an unforgivable crime according to Shari'ah.

It's more serious if a Muslim commits fraud than adultery, is false, because adultery is an unforgivable crime and fraud is a community crime.

Again, if you need to make any corrections, can you please do so now by pausing the video then unpausing when you are done.

Okay.

So just wait for my camera for appear.

There we go.

So I want to say a huge thank you to you for working so, so hard into our lesson today.

We've looked at a lot of really, really tricky stuff, I think actually.

Getting our head round the four categories of law, the different categories of human action, the four sources of Shari'ah law, the ins and outs of that, how they're similar, how they're different and which ones come under which categories.

So a huge, huge, well done.

I really, really appreciate you working so hard and I hope to see you again soon for another lesson on crime and punishment.

And also if you have enjoyed, which I hope you have, the lesson.

I hope you've also enjoyed seeing little Wilbur there, sitting in the background.

You can't really quite see him there.

He is.

Look.

There he is.

He's enjoyed listening to Shari'ah too.

So thank you very much, everyone.

Bye.