DOHA: Relation between freedom and Shariah was the focus of a recent lecture at Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS) in the Education City.
The lecture on ‘Shariah application in free societies: From the legal to the ethical perspective’ was organised by Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE), a member of QFIS.
Dr Mohamed El Moctar El Shinqiti, a prominent political thinker and Professor of Islam and political ethics at CILE, started his lecture by stressing the harmony between freedom and Shariah and the necessity of bringing them together to save the current Muslim societies from the cultural and ethical schism between Islamists and secularists.
He identified the obstacles preventing this integration between Shariah and freedom as the lack of the sense of practicality, the absence of a clear definition of the concepts of ‘Shariah’ and ‘application of Shariah’.
He said Muslims need to have a clear theory of religion that reflects the comprehensiveness of Islam, to overcome the dualism between divine law and human law, and to develop a clear distinction between the two aspects of morality and legality in Shariah.
He answered questions from the audience on ethical and jurisprudential challenges that reflect moral and intellectual anxieties brought about by the Arab Spring.
