THE ESSENCE OF THE SHARI’AH
EXPLANATORY NOTE

This is perhaps the most important chapter of the book,

The first point that Iqbal emphasises is that wealth (capital) in itself is nothing evil. It is the use to which it is put that determines its value. Any exploitation of one class by the other must be condemned.

Islam lays down certain limits with regard both to earning and spending money. Unfortunately, modern age, under the European ways of secularism, has lost sight of this very import-ant distinction between lawful and unlawful earnings and the result is that all kinds of social evils are undermining the peace and security of the people. Iqbal particularly refers to the banking system, which, he thinks, is based on exploitation of man by man.

In the sphere of morals, human reason is found to be defective in affording guidance. Iqbal thinks that revelation, as embodied in the Shari’ah, can help us here. It is based on social justice and can easily meet the economic demands of the common man.

In the end, Iqbal comes to resolve the age-old tension between Shari’ah and Tariqah. According to -him, Tariqah is the mode of following the laws. When you follow the Shari’ah with all your heart in its true spirit, you are following the Tariqah. In the words of Iqbal, it is to discover “the ultimate source of the law [Shari’ah] within the depths of [our] own consciousness.”1 This discovery enables the individual to rise above the petty differences of the theologians and the jurists and to realise the real worth of the Shari’ah, whose object is to establish a socio-economic system in which every individual has the inalienable right to live free from all man-imposed claims and the State is responsible to meet his primary needs of food and shelter and upbringing of his children.

[None be dependent on others (for primary needs).]


1.         Reconstruction, p. 181.