Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is often described as the human understanding and practices of the sharia, that is human understanding of the divine Islamic law as revealed in the Quran and the sunnah. Fiqh expands and develops Shariah through interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and Sunnah by Islamic jurists (ulama) and is implemented by the rulings (fatwa) of jurists on questions presented to them. Thus, whereas sharia is considered immutable and infallible by Muslims, fiqh is considered fallible and changeable. Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam as well as economic and political system. In the modern era, there are four prominent schools (madh'hab) of fiqh within Sunni practice, plus two within Shi'a practice. A person trained in fiqh is known as a faqīh.
Ḥadīth or Athar refers to what most Muslims and the mainstream schools of Islamic thought/believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as transmitted through chains of narrators. In other words, the ḥadīth are attributed reports about what Muhammad said and did.
In Islam, sunnah, also spelled sunna, are the traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time evidently saw and followed and passed on to the next generations. According to classical Islamic theories, the sunnah are documented by hadith, and alongside the Quran are the divine revelation (wahy) delivered through Muhammad that make up the primary sources of Islamic law and belief/theology. Differing from Sunni classical Islamic theories are those of Shia Muslims, who hold that Imams interpret the sunnah, and Sufi who hold that Muhammad transmitted the values of sunnah "through a series of Sufi teachers".
Liberalism and progressivism within Islam involve professed Muslims who have created a considerable body of progressive thought about Islamic understanding and practice. Their work is sometimes characterized as "progressive Islam". Some scholars, such as Omid Safi, differentiate between "Progressive Muslims" and "Liberal advocates of Islam".
Tafsir refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a tafsir is a mufassir. A Quranic tafsir attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, interpretation, context or commentary for clear understanding and conviction of God's will.
Zināʾ (زِنَاء) or zinā is an Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse. According to traditional jurisprudence, zina can include adultery, fornication, prostitution, rape, sodomy, incest, and bestiality. Zina must be proved by testimony of four Muslim eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, or a confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. Rapists could be prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of zina without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called qadhf (القذف), which is itself a hudud offense.
Islamic mythology is the body of myths associated with Islam and the Quran. Islam is a religion that is more concerned with social order and law than with religious ritual or myths. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology identifies a number of traditional narratives as "Islamic myths". These include a creation myth and a vision of afterlife, which Islam shares with the other Abrahamic religions, as well as the distinctively Islamic story of the Kaaba.
Rajm in Islam refers to the Hudud punishment wherein an organized group throws stones at a convicted individual until that person dies. Under some versions of Islamic law (Sharia), it is the prescribed punishment in cases of adultery committed by a married person which requires either a confession from either the adulterer or adulteress, or producing four witnesses of sexual penetration.
In Islam, bid'ah refers to innovation in religious matters. Linguistically, the term means "innovation, novelty, heretical doctrine, heresy". Despite its common use in Muslim texts, the term is not found in the Qur'an.
Criticism of Islam is questioning or challenging the beliefs, practices, and doctrines of Islam. Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions.
Enjoining good and forbidding wrong are two important duties imposed by God in Islam, as revealed in the Quran and hadith.
Hadith studies consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in the study and evaluation of the Islamic hadith—i.e. the record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.
Tolu-e-Islam, also known as Bazm-e-Tolu-e-Islam, is an organization which focuses on understanding the Quran via logic, empiricism, and the appropriate application of the rules of Classical Arabic. The words Tolu-e-Islam, meaning "dawn" or "resurgence" of Islam, were taken from "Tulu'i Islam", the title of a poem by the philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal.
According to Islam, animals are conscious of God. According to the Quran, they praise Him, even if this praise is not expressed in human language. Baiting animals for entertainment or gambling is prohibited. It is forbidden to kill any animal except for food or to prevent it from harming people.
Criticism of ḥadīth or hadithical criticism is the critique of ḥadīth—the genre of canonized Islamic literature made up of attributed reports of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Atharism or Atharī theology, otherwise referred to as Traditionalist theology or Scripturalist theology, is one of the main Sunni schools of Islamic theology which is more strict in adherence to the Quran and Sunnah. It emerged as a school of theology in the late 8th century CE from the scholarly circles of Ahl al-Hadith, an early Islamic religious movement that rejected the formulation of Islamic doctrine derived from rationalistic Islamic theology (kalām) in favor of strict textualism in interpreting the Quran and the ḥadīth. The name derives from "tradition" in its technical sense as a translation of the Arabic word athar. It's adherents are referred to by several names such as "Ahl al-Athar", "Ahl al-Hadith", etc.
Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-ur-Rahim al-ʿUmari ad-Dehlawi, commonly known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, was an Islamic Sunni scholar and Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who is seen by his followers as a renewer. He emphasized the importance of following Sharia and believed in the unification of Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of law, aiming to reduce legal differences.
Quranism or Qur'anism is an Islamic movement that holds the belief that divine law should be derived solely from the Quran.
Ghulam Ahmed Perwez's ideas focused on systematically interpreting Quranic themes, and Muhammad Iqbal’s writings in the light of Islamic Reform with an aim to reorganize society on a Quranic basis. According to Parwez, the original purpose of Islam, is to free humanity from the oppressive rule of man-made systems of control. These man-made systems include Theocracy and Secular Democracy, both of which, are in contradiction to Quranic principles. A Quranic model of government will give the final authority to God Himself. Such a government allows only those laws which are within the bounds of Quran, and actively promotes Quranic principles. He elaborated on the definition of many Quranic principles, such as that of Zakat, which he defined as universal welfare. He also emphasized the importance of unity for Muslims: "the Qur’an is naturally opposed to sectarianism in deen and factionalism in politics. Sects and factions breed strife and dissension in the Ummah. According to the Qur'an, sectarianism is a form of shirk."
Kassim Ahmad was a Malaysian Muslim philosopher, intellectual, writer, poet and an educator. He was also a socialist politician in the early days of Malaya and later Malaysia and was detained without trial from 1976 to 1981 under Malaysia's Internal Security Act.
