The Shariah and its Application

THE SHARIAH AND ITS APPLICATION circumstances as prevailed in Madinah, while they find themselves in the situation that prevailed in Makkah. History shows that the Prophet of Islam and his companions were faced with all the problems and hardships in Makkah, as the Muslims of modern times have allegedly been, facing. Yet when the Prophet of Islam asked his companions to follow the path of patience and avoidance, no one stood up to question why they must exercise patience, when the Quran enjoins them to do battle, simply because the complete Quran was not available. The truth is that the Quran was not revealed all at once in the form of a bound book, the one we have in our possession today. The Quran was revealed on different occasions over a period of 23 years, but in installments. Only those commands were revealed to the Prophet as were required by the circumstances. For instance, in the initial stage, the Prophet was given the command to perform dawah by observing patience (74:2-7). Later on, as circumstances warranted, the command to migrate was revealed (16:41). Subsequently, when circumstances further changed, the command to do battle was revealed (2:190), etc. This shows that in the initial stage of Islam when the Quran was being revealed, the order of revelation tallied with the order of events. For this reason, people did not find any difficulty in understanding their role as soon as a command was revealed. But afterwards, all the verses revealed over a period of 23 years, relating to different sets of circumstances, were collected together in the form of a bound volume. It is this complete book which has remained in the hands of later Muslim generations till today. By the very law of nature, circumstances keep changing,