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Sharia
(2,383 words)

1. Sharia and fiqh

In common Muslim usage, the term Sharia (Arabic šarī‘a, Ottoman Turkish şerī‘at) denotes the totality of the norms of belief, ethics, and  justice in Islam given by God through the Quran and the Prophet Muḥammad. The term includes the corpus of normative Islamic texts (i.e. the Quran and the tradition of the Prophet) together with their learned interpretation, systematization, and updati…

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Reichmuth, Stefan, “Sharia”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 02 October 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_027010>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20180208



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