Hadith, Sharia and Islamic Law

Alongside the Quran, Muslims look to the Sunnah, the example of Muhammad's words and actions, recorded in reports called hadith. Scholars developed careful methods to judge hadith reliability by examining chains of transmitters (isnad); collections such as those of al-Bukhari and Muslim are especially respected by Sunni Muslims. Sharia, often translated as Islamic law, literally means 'the path' and refers to God's guidance for life, while fiqh is the human effort to understand and apply it.

Sharia covers far more than criminal law: most of it concerns worship, family life, business ethics, diet and charity. Sunni Islam developed four major schools of law, the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali, and Shia Muslims follow the Ja'fari school; differences among them show that interpretation has always been plural. How sharia relates to modern state law is debated among Muslims, and countries vary from secular legal systems to ones that apply Islamic law in family matters or more broadly.