Towards a Conventional Interpretation

Abstract

From the preceding Chapters we know that Muslim classical doctrine rather reflects the impact of socio-political circumstances on the understanding of jurists particularly under the Abbassids. A certain degree of affinity between the said doctrine and the Greco-Roman laws could not be denied especially in regard to the religious nature of war and the dual division of the world. The Roman division of the world into Romans and barbarians may in some way be compared to the Islamic division into Muslims and non-Muslims considering that rights acknowledged by the Muslim classical doctrine for the non-Muslims are more humane than those recognized by the Romans for the barbarians. Two opposite theories try to rationalize this affinity. One maintains that the resemblance discloses a Roman intellectual influence on Islamic thought. The second holds that this affinity is a mere coincidence, and adds that the Islamic classical conception is far more advanced in the path of humanity and legal civilization. It is hard to refuse either of the two views, though the lacking of mention of any Greco-Roman reference in the works of the Muslim jurists stands in favour of the second theory. Notwithstanding both theories, this affinity assumes that we are to admit that the Islamic classical doctrine, in the general history of Public International Law, played an equivalent rôle to that of the Greco-Roman Laws as a remote shape of modern international law. However, a confusion should be removed. The alleged affinity, whatever it may be, exists between Islamic classical jurisprudence — not the Shari’ah — and Greco-Roman Laws. That inter-connection is due to the way the jurists interpreted the original texts of the Qur’ān and the hadith. The Shari’ah is composed of unchangeable texts. Those texts as such if examined under modern tenets, could provide us with solutions which cope with the needs of present international relations. Thereby, the similarity only exists between the individual or collective interpretation of the Islamic divine texts and the corresponding texts. Consequently, it is inaccurate to say there is affinity between the Islamic Shari’ah and the Greco-Roman Laws.