Sharia

In Islamic law

Sharia literally means the path to the watering place. In its classical sense it is the whole of what God has commanded — worship, ethics, and dealings between people — rather than a book of rules or a system of courts. The distinction that governs everything else is between sharia and fiqh: sharia is revelation, while fiqh is the jurists' understanding of it, and is therefore fallible, plural and revisable. Almost everything popularly called 'sharia law' is in fact fiqh — a considered scholarly reading — which is why four schools can reach different conclusions without any of them standing outside Islam.

In Canadian law

Sharia has no legal force in Canada. It is not a source of Canadian law, and no reported case has applied it as the governing law of a dispute. What Canadian law does instead is give effect to arrangements Muslims make for themselves: a will drafted to follow faraid works because testamentary freedom permits it, and a mahr is enforced because it satisfies the ordinary requirements of a contract — not because either is Islamic. Since 2006, Ontario's Family Law Act has allowed family arbitration only under Canadian law, so an award decided on religious law is not enforceable as a family arbitration award.

Across the madhahib

The sharia/fiqh distinction is common ground across the four Sunni schools; it is what makes their disagreement intelligible rather than scandalous. Two jurists reading the same revelation can differ, and classical scholars said so about their own conclusions.

Canadian legal detail

Treadstone Law, an Ontario firm with a wills and estates practice, covers the Canadian side of this in more depth:

• Religious burial requirements conflict with family ontario
• Waiving rights under spouses will marriage contract ontario
• Dependant support award effect on estate tax ontario