Al-Jathiyah · Makki · ayah 18 of 37

Al-Jathiyah 45:18

ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَـٰكَ عَلَىٰ شَرِيعَةٍ مِّنَ ٱلْأَمْرِ فَٱتَّبِعْهَا وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَآءَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

“Then We put you, [O Muḥammad], on an ordained way concerning the matter [of religion]; so follow it and do not follow the inclinations of those who do not know.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Before it meant law, sharīʿa meant the path worn down to the water; the ayah sets the Prophet ﷺ on it and says: follow it.

A reflection

The path down to the water

For many people today, the word sharīʿa calls up one picture: courts, penalties, headlines. Many Muslims carry a narrow version of the same image, as if the word meant a list of punishments and nothing more.

The first hearers pictured something else entirely. Two classical commentators record its meaning in the speech of the Arabs. A sharīʿa was the place where people came down to a river to drink. The bank slopes there, and the water can be reached. One adds that a street, shāriʿ, is named from the same root, because it is a road that takes you where you are going. The lexicons add that the Arabs used the name only for water that was lasting and in plain sight, needing no well-rope. A saying went: the easiest watering is leading camels into the sharīʿa. The usage is established.

So when Allah says 'We set you on a sharīʿa of the command', the image is a way down to water in a thirsty land. One commentator says the religion is called this because people come to it to receive Allah's command, His mercy and nearness to Him.

Picture a family on a summer walk in a dry, stony valley. The children are hot and complaining; the water bottles are empty. Then, behind a rock, they find a flight of steps cut into the hillside, worn smooth by centuries of feet. At the bottom is a spring, cold and clear, where villagers once filled their jars. Nobody in that family thinks of the steps as a restriction. They are the only way down to what everyone needs.

That is the picture behind the word. The commandments and prohibitions are real; one early authority defined the sharīʿa in this ayah as obligations, limits, commands and prohibitions. But they are steps cut into the hillside, not bars across the path. They exist because the water is down there, and the slope is steep.

The next time you hear the word used as a threat, remember the steps. Sharīʿa was first a way to drink.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.