The Shariah and its Application

THE SHARIAH AND ITS APPLICATION of dawah was revealed at the time when the performance of dawah was required, the injunction of patience was revealed when patience was required and the injunction to do battle was revealed at the time when battle was required. Thus, people were not faced with any confusion in understanding the injunctions as well as their application. But later-day Muslims find out the injunctions—of patience, dawah and war—all together in one single book. It was now left to the Muslims to find, on their own, which of the varied injunctions is relevant to their particular sets of circumstances. That is to say, earlier the circumstances and the injunctions tallied with one another, whereas now the injunctions are many and varied, while the state of affairs in any one particular given situation demands, (in practice), the application of only one injunction. As mentioned above, the present Quran does not follow the order of revelation, that is, the chronological order of revelations has not been followed in the compilation of the Quran. The arrangement of the present order of the Quran not being based on the order of revelation is probably a matter of testing the faithful. This test requires Muslims to exercise their reason objectively in order to find out which one of the commands it is desirable for them to carry out in a particular situation. This test in its nature is like that given to the people of the first phase. In their case it involved the discovery of the true claimant to Truth out of many claimants. Similarly, the test of the Muslims of later times involved the discovery of that particular injunction applicable to their circumstances and desirable by God. The emergence of the Prophet was a test for his