William andrew kopwe the open university of tanzania

2.3.2 Diversity of Sharī’a Implementation

Though there are common sources of Sharī’a to all Muslims around the globe, Sharī’a implementation has never been similar. Sharī’a implementation varies from one people to another in respect to religious, social, economical and political context of the implementers. Anderson (1976) gives a crystal clear variation of Sharī’a implementation in the world. He says that there is a great deal of change in the application of Islamic laws in the so called Islamic states in the world. He further points out that in most of the Muslim world; Islamic law has been replaced by the Western secular law. This being the case, there is a vast amount of Sharī’a which is not applied in the life of Muslims. He further says that Sharī’a in many areas where there is strong customary laws has been blended with those laws which result into a law that fits only to the given context.
Diversity in Islam and Sharī’a implementation at large has been a major point of discussion among anthropologists and sociologists of Islam in the World. Antoun (1989) gives reasons for diversity in Islam and its effects on the interpretation of normative or normal Islam. “Normative Islam refers to how Muslims are expected to, or ought to, act and think. That is, it refers to prescriptions for believers in the areas of worship, social relations, daily transactions, and politics”. For him, the study of the diversity in Islam can be pursued from five perspectives: from the perspective of the beliefs themselves or the text, from the perspective of the linker and interpreter, from the perspective of a cognitive system, from the perspective of the social structure and from the perspective of the folk. From this kind of analysis one can deduce that there is interplay between the Great Tradition and Little Traditions, which makes many facets of Sharī’a implementation in the world.
Shivji (2004) contends that Islamic law is not fully implemented in most of Muslim societies in the world today. Shivji shows that these Muslim societies have always lived according to customary laws. While these laws are probably generally based on the principles of Islamic law and given an important place, they have also deviated from strict orthodoxy and contradicted the principles and rules of Islamic religious law in ways which vary according to the period, Country, and subject matter. Therefore Shivji’s comment suggests that Islamic law is applied in respect to the context of the people. Shivji’s thesis if invaluable for this study because he is a Tanzanian and the book is written for civic education in Tanzanians. His analysis of Sharī’a implementation in the Tanzania mainland context is important for this study.

2.3.3 Sharī’a and Islamic Resurgence

The current demand for Sharī’a implementation is a result of worldwide Islamic revivalism. Esposito (1991) is of the opinion that the dominant theme of contemporary Islam is its resurgence. Islamic resurgence is synonymous to Islamic revivalism or Islamic extremism. For him, resurgence is not a new phenomenon to Islam. From its earliest, Islam possessed a tradition of revival and reform. Two concepts are central to Islamic resurgence: Tajdid (renewal) and Islah (reform). Both concepts call for a return to the fundamentals of Islam, the Qur’ān and Sunna of the prophets.
Doing so is to go back to the pristine Islam, the Islam of strict Sharī’a implementation. Esposito says that internal and external threats to the life of the Muslim community acted as stimuli for religious revivalism and reform. Pre-modern revivalist movements rose up in eighteenth century to address the social and moral decline, while the nineteenth and twentieth century produced the Islamic modernist movement and Islamic societies like Muslim brotherhood, which offered Islamic response to the challenge of European colonialism and modernization. The underlying concept to the resurgent movement is that people have gone against God that is why they suffer that much. Hence for their liberation they should go back to God by abiding by his Sharī’a.
Jomier (1989) opinioned earlier that in Islam religious resurgence always goes back to Sharī’a. However he poses a question about which form of Sharī’a usually is claimed to be revived or should be revived. For him, modernity has been a big challenge to Sharī’a implementation in the world. Sharī’a implementation is tantamount to trying to tell people to live the 6^th Century life, a situation which may be taken to be anachronism.

2.3.4 Sharī’a and Liberation

Joinent (1998) says that the current Islamic resurgence is a modernist movement of Islamic revivalism which has as its hallmark to fight against Western colonialism and its Western cultural influence to the Muslims. He further comments that the modernist movement of Islamic resurgence takes their stance from the past ideas of Ibn Hanbal (780-885) whose ideologies are adhered to by the Wahhabi movement, the current Ansār Sunna Muslims. Also they are influenced by Ibn Taymia (1236-1328) and Jamal al-din Afghan of 19^th C. The idea was taken up again in Egypt by Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was killed in 1949. The same idea was rejuvenated by Sayyid Qutb who was hanged in 1966. All of them share basic Islamist convictions. Joinet documents that the Islamists say: “Western society is godless, secular, individualistic, corrupt and immoral”. This is taken by Muslims as a state of Jāhiliyya, the state of ignorance and corruption which was prevalent in society before the coming of Islam.
Second to that is, “The immorality of modern Western society has penetrated to the heart of the Muslim community, the umma.” Hence the Muslim society has to be saved from that corruption.
Thirdly is that “Muslim states and the umma will be saved from Western corruption by the introduction of the Sharī’a as the official law of the Country imposed upon all.” Therefore Muslim states must become Islamic and follow Sharī’a, which will save the Muslim umma from the Western state of Jāhiliyya.
Fourthly the Islamists say that “We must conquer and control the central Government, which alone can introduce the Sharī’a as the Constitution of the Country.” Therefore the Islamist movement is more or less a political movement per se. For the Islamist “…today Islam is not only a question of faith. It constitutes a political power.” That is why the activists affirm that “Non-political Islam is like a bird without wings”.