Why Does Islam Have So Many Laws?

Sometimes, people express that adhering to their faith as a Muslim can feel like keeping track of a very long list of rules: What can I eat? What can’t I eat? How should I pray? What invalidates my wudhu? What am I allowed to do? What am I supposed to avoid?

A question arises: Wouldn’t it be easier if God simply told us to be good people and left the rest up to us?

To understand why God has prescribed a way of life for us, let us first consider the function of law in society. 

Every society has laws, and the purpose of these laws isn’t simply restriction. 

There are morality-based laws, such as those forbidding murder, theft, and fraud. These laws reflect the values and beliefs of society and are intended to protect people from harm. 

There is also common law. These include rules about driving, contracts, property, taxes, education, and countless other parts of everyday life.

As a simple exercise, imagine a world without traffic laws. There are no speed limits, no stop signs, and no rules about who has the right of way. Technically, you would have more “freedom.” But would that be a better world to live in? 

The absence of rules doesn’t necessarily create ease. Sometimes, it creates chaos. Ideally, rules exist to protect what is valuable: safety, dignity, equality, and justice. 

The Arabic word for Islamic law is shariah, literally meaning a path leading to a source of water. 

Such is a beautiful image for understanding Islamic law as guiding us to the source of all life. 

The purpose of Islamic law isn’t to create a maze of restrictions that makes life difficult. God has not placed arbitrary obstacles between Him and us. These divine instructions are meant to help guide us in building relationships with God, ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

Here are four foundational principles of Islamic law:

1. Mercy

One of the most important ways we come to know God is through His names and attributes. Consider what we recite each day in our prayers: that God is al-Raḥman and al-Raḥim (the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful). Before we think about what God asks us to do, we should remember who God is.

“When the believers in Our revelations come to you, say, “Peace be upon you! Your Lord has taken upon Himself to be Merciful. Whoever among you commits evil ignorantly ˹or recklessly˺ then repents afterwards and mends their ways, then God is truly All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Quran 6:54)

Considering this verse, even when God warns us about the consequences of our actions, His mercy remains greater than our mistakes. He assures us that whoever does wrong out of ignorance, then repents and reforms, will be granted forgiveness. 

This should change the way we regard Islamic law. It should transform the question from: “What am I forbidden from doing?” to “How is this rule benefiting me spiritually, mentally/emotionally, and physically?”

2. Ease, Not Burden

If Islam is a religion of mercy, why are there so many details?

Human beings are complicated. If we were left with only general principles such as “be good” and “don’t hurt people,” we may have trouble translating this into specific circumstances and situations. 

We need guidance for what goodness looks like when we’re angry, when we’re wealthy, when we’re tempted, when we’re grieving, when we’re in conflict, when we’re responsible for someone else, when we are facing temptations and desires, etc. 

At the same time, God does not want us to turn religion into an unbearable burden.

At the beginning of Sūrat Ṭāhā, God tells the Prophet (pbuh):

“We have not sent down the Quran to you that you should be distressed.” (Quran 20:2)

The Quran was not revealed to make the Prophet (pbuh) miserable; neither is Islam meant to cause us distress. It is important to distinguish between discipline and burden. Something can be difficult without being harmful.

For example, prayer may require us to stop what we’re doing five times a day; fasting requires us to exercise self-control; giving charity requires us to give away something that we could have kept. But these actions have the power to transform us for the better. 

God also repeatedly makes accommodations to allow us to practice our faith with increased ease: Travelers can shorten their prayers. Those who are ill have different rulings for fasting. Someone who genuinely cannot perform an obligation in its normal form may pursue an alternative method.

The point of Islamic jurisprudence is to help us worship God with confidence and peace.

3. Cultivating Kindness 

Religiousness should make us kinder. Sometimes the way we talk about Islamic law can make the sound harsh. We forget the character that Islam is trying to cultivate within us.

God tells Prophet Muhammad (pbuh&hp):

“It is by mercy from God that you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh and hard-hearted, they would have dispersed from around you…” (Quran 3:159)

The Prophet (pbuh&hp) was the recipient of divine revelation and the teacher of Islamic law. Yet God emphasizes his gentleness. The person who is deeply committed to Islam should become someone whom others feel safe approaching.

They should be someone who is patient, who forgives, who does not judge. Our commitment to fulfilling God’s wishes should mold us into people of taqwā, mercy, justice, humility, and compassion.

4. Protecting the Vulnerable 

Islam, through its laws, gives rights to those who cannot speak for themselves. Consider even the way the Prophet (pbuh&hf) spoke about animals. He lays out rights that animals have over us. Among those rights are that we feed them when they need food, provide them with water, do not harm them unjustly, do not burden them beyond their capacity, and do not force them to travel beyond what they can handle. The Messenger of God (pbuh&hf) states:

1. He feeds her when he descends
2. offers her water when he passes by
3. does not hit her unless it is right
4. does not carry her what she cannot bear
5. does not make her carry except what she can bear
6. does not stand over her

(al-Saduq, Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqīh, vol. 2, book 3, ch. 25, Hadith 2465)

Therefore, the purpose of divine guidance isn’t simply to regulate our relationship with God. It teaches us how to treat everything God has entrusted to us. Our bodies have rights. Our families have rights. Our neighbors have rights. The poor have rights. Animals have rights. The earth has rights. Even our own souls have rights.

God’s rules, then, aren’t necessarily about restriction. Sometimes they’re about responsibility. 

Islam is perfect. Our understanding of Islam is not.

Let’s not forget to differentiate between God’s law and man’s law. The Quran is divine revelation. The Prophet (pbuh) and the Ahl al-Bayt (pbut) are our divinely guided sources for understanding the religion. But human beings—scholars and laymen and everyone in between—are not perfect.

In Shia Islamic jurisprudence, our scholars engage in a process of reasoning to determine the applicable ruling in circumstances that may not always be explicitly addressed in revelation. That means we should distinguish between the religion itself and our understanding and application of the religion.

This distinction is important because sometimes we encounter a ruling that we don’t immediately understand. When this happens, we should pause and ask: What is the purpose behind this ruling? What is it protecting? What might I be missing? Have I understood the ruling correctly?

When necessary, we can ask a qualified scholar to help us understand it. Our goal shouldn’t be to follow Islamic law blindly; it should be to understand the wisdom and purpose behind it, and when we don’t necessarily have an explicit wisdom, we submit to a God who we know is always offering us blessings and manifestations of His mercy.