Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sources of Islamic law/1

Sources of Islamic law

 * • Watch article reassessment page
 * Result: Delist and put on hold. The initial review was lacking, and it was agreed that a more thorough review by Somno should proceed before listing. In that respect, advice from subject experts would be invaluable, but Somno should be the reviewer. If this results in conflict rather than healthy collaboration, editors are welcome to reconsider help from GAR: we are here to help. Geometry guy 22:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The article was given a quick review by the original reviewer, Orca8767 here. After receiving no response from the reviewer after addressing their concern, editor Bless sins asked for help on the GA talk page here. I provided a full review of the article (as I don't believe the first reviewer did that) here. Now the first reviewer has passed the article and none of my concerns have been addressed. I don't think this article meets GA standards - several sections are unclear and there are problems with the prose. Somno (talk) 01:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * criticism I'm a Muslim and review the lead from Islamic viewpoint. This is the lead:Sharia is the dynamic body of Islamic religious law. The primary sources of Islamic law, accepted universally by all Muslims, are the Qur'an and Sunnah. The Qur'an is holy scripture of Muslims, believed by them to be the direct and unaltered word of God. The Sunnah is the traditions established by the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
 * 1) Is the title correct? As Morteza Motahhari explains it should be the source of Islamic jurisprudence or Fiqh which means Jurisprudence is the study of the secondary commands (i.e. not the principle matters of beliefs and moral perfection, but the commands regulating actions) of the Shari'ah of Islam gained from the detailed resources and proofs. Then he explains that there are four sources for jurisprudence.
 * 2) The first sentence says Sharia is the dynamic body of Islamic religious law. What does dynamic means here. If it means that Sharia changes from time to time, this is rejected by all Muslims except Ismailis. The sentence doesn't have any source. Sunni defines it as The Arabic word shari`ah refers to the laws and way of life prescribed by Allah (SWT) for his servants. The shari`ah deals with the ideology and faith; behavior and manners; and practical daily matters. Shari`ah includes the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saas).   Seyyed Hossein Nasr defines it with Sufi approach as The concrete embodiment of the Divine Will, which is the Shariah, is called the exoteric dimension in the sense of governing all of man's outward life as well as his body In addition, Noah Feldman writes Shariah, properly understood, is not just a set of legal rules. To believing Muslims, it is something deeper and higher, infused with moral and metaphysical purpose... In fact, “Shariah” is not the word traditionally used in Arabic to refer to the processes of Islamic legal reasoning or the rulings produced through it: that word is fiqh, meaning something like Islamic jurisprudence. The word “Shariah” connotes a connection to the divine, a set of unchanging beliefs and principles that order life in accordance with God’s will. Unfortunately some scholars who haven't studied in Islamic seminaries such as Abdolkarim Soroush mixed these terms (Religion, Shariah and Fiqh).
 * 3) These two points show that the source of Islamic law as a divine law is Wahy and some scholars may add intellect(reason which relates to wahy). In fact, Fiqh is the dynamic understanding of Shariah. Faqih(jurisprudent) uses different sources to find the divine law(Shariah).
 * 4) It's written in the second paragraph Secondary sources of the Islamic law, also called Islamic juristic doctrines, are: ijma, qiyas, aql and ijtihad. Is Ijtihad a source beside Ijma, qiyas, aql, etc. In fact, Ijtihad is a technical term of Islamic law that describes the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources. Thus Ijtihad itself is not a source.
 * 5) What about Urf or custom. Urf is not a source to find the law, but it's a source to understanding the problem. Furthermore in some cases like Hijab, Shariah describes the restrictions and other issues such as shape, color,etc are depend on Urf. So we shouldn't mention it beside other sources without clarification.
 * 6) previous knowledge? What does it mean? Unfortunately I couldn't find any section which clarifies it. -- Seyyed(t-c) 03:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To Somno: I'm in the process of addressing your concerns. About half of them have been addressed, and I will finish addressing them within the next 24 hours.Bless sins (talk) 03:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Dear Bless sins, I think the name of the article should be changed, the lead should be rewritten completely and the body should be rearranged. Thus I added an expert tag. I hope it would not bother you.-- Seyyed(t-c) 05:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just commenting on the issues raised. 1/2/3 are reasonable points, the terms Shari'ah and Fiqh are often confused. In short, fiqh involves the employment of the four aforementioned sources to obtain a Shari' verdict. "Islamic law" can actualy connote several things, so a better title might be "Sources of Islamic jurisprudence." But it's not a significant problem IMO. Ijtihad isn't a source, it's a process which mostly uses qiyas. I wouldn't say that aql has traditionally been considered a source. Urf is not really a significant consideration either.  ITAQALLAH   16:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Proposal. I'd like to do the obvious thing and close this GAR as delist, putting the article back on hold at GAN with Somno as the reviewer. I think this is the best way to serve the interests of the article, and hence the encyclopedia. :-) This is a case, I agree, where input from a subject expert (who is not a significant contributor) would help to balance the "outsider perspective" of the reviewer. If anyone thinks that this is likely to lead to conflict, rather than a healthy collaboration, then please comment: in that case it may be better to keep this GAR open to provide disinterested input from regular GAR reviewers. Geometry guy 10:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. This is the best way to serve the interests of the article. I think I can help with the article by adding technical viewpoint, if Bless Sins accept. Another choice is Itaqallah. None of us have participated in the article.-- Seyyed(t-c) 13:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm also happy with that solution. I brought the article here rather than just delisting it myself because if one GA reviewer has recently decided it is GA quality, I didn't want to assume my opinion was "better" than theirs and delist it - I would rather get feedback from other reviewers. Somno (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Majoreditor (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess that sounds fair: so Somno is the reviewer of this article for GA status.Bless sins (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Concur, and look forward to seeing the results ;) EyeSerene talk 20:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)