Sharia

Sharia (Arabic: شريعة transliteration: Šarī‘ah) is the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or "path to the water source"; it is the legal framework within which the public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles of jurisprudence.

Sharia deals with all aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues.

There is no strictly codified set of laws pertaining to sharia. Sharia is more like a system of devising laws, based on the Qur'an (holy book of Islam), hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent.

Before the 19th century, legal theory was considered the domain of the traditional legal schools of thought. Most Sunni Muslims follow Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki or Shafii, while most Shia Muslims follow Jaafari (Hallaq 1997, Brown 1996, Aslan 2006).