6. COMMANDS AND PROHIBITIONS
The language of the Qur’an (and the Sunnah) differs from that of modern statutes in that Qur’anic legislation is not confined to commands and prohibitions and their consequences, but is often coupled with an appeal to the conscience of the individual. This moral appeal may consist of a persuasion or a warning, an allusion to the possible benefit or harm that may accrue from observing or violating an injunction, or a promise of reward/punishment in the hereafter. Modern laws are often devoid of such appeals, as they are usually confined to an exposition of imperative rules anti their tangible results.
Commands and prohibitions in the Qur’an occur in a variety of forms. While an injunction is normally expected to be in the imperative mood, there are occasions where a simple past is used as a substitute. For example, the injunctions that `retaliation is prescribed for you in cases of murder’ and that `fasting is prescribed for you’ (al-Baqarah, 2:178 and 183) are both expressed in the past tense. Similarly, a Qur’anic injunction may occur in the form of a moral condemnation of a certain form of conduct, such as the rule on the sanctity of private dwellings which provides: ‘It is no virtue to enter houses from the back’ (al-Baqarah, 2: 189). Also, a Qur’anic command/prohibition may be conveyed in the form of an allusion to the consequences of a form of conduct, such as a promise of reward or punishment in the hereafter. For example, after expounding the rules of inheritance in sura al-Nisa’ (4:13-14) the text goes on to promise to those who observe them a reward, and warns violators of a punishment, in the hereafter.
by M. H. Kamali.
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