Are all of the laws in the Quran/Haddith/Islam relevant to modern (western) society?
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I have been reading a book about Muhammad (pbuh) and have learnt, I am sure only a little, about Islam and the culture and times back then. It seems to an unlearned man like myself that the laws were highly relevant given the nature of society and culture of the day.
My question is, are the laws still relevant in the culture and society of the modern day, and as I can only talk for UK I will direct it with this culture and society in mind.
I am aware of the obvious cultural/tradition heritage of the Middle-east versus the UK but that aside please could someone elaborate or at least ask some further questions so that I can refine this question further into the format required for this forum.
The specific laws that for me personally are hard to grapple with are those of corporal punishment etc.
Update: Both cultural and Islamic claims are played to win over whether a law is to be adhered to or not, that is partly why I asked the question. On the face of it this question can seem obvious to answer, but on a closer consideration there are complications that arise, especially for people that do not have a great knowledge on the subject and the answers are found only through further research.
My problem is laws have been and can be determined by interpretation through the lens of culture and some are considered truly universal but how can you know and if knowledge is there to aid discernment, how can it be distilled from scripture that has been written possibly for a different audience in a different era and being no scholar on Arabic how can one be sure the meaning in the language still has the same meaning today, I am sure it is not only English that suffers from loss of meaning through language evolution?
Actually, on second thought, justice is justice and that is universal, but the prescription for certain crimes such as theft where the offender loses limbs seem unnecessary, I am not saying they are wrong although to me that kind of punishment seems to me to be unnecessary for the culture I live in but in that case I would be using my own culture as a means to interpret the rewards for such crimes.
I think my question is difficult to answer when attempting to discern what are cultural and what are Islamic precepts, so I will ask another question more specific to certain laws that have already been suggested in answers to this question.
Asked by Mr. Mr.
(711 rep)
Oct 17, 2012, 03:47 PM
Last activity: May 2, 2017, 04:03 PM
Last activity: May 2, 2017, 04:03 PM