Islamic law presents a contrast to the Western systems of civil and common law not only in its methods of legal reasoning, but in the priority of its sources as well. There is no legislation in the traditional concept of its legal system, and judicial decisions play little or no role in the determination of legal norms. Islamic law or sharica (the way), which refers to the path of law that Muslims (those who submit to God) must follow to reach heaven,’ is defined in Islamic legal theory as the law of God based on four main sources: the Koran (a collection of revelations made to the Prophet between 609-632 A.D.), the sunna (decisions, words, actions, and tacit approvals of the Prophet, which are related in traditions called hadiths), ijmac (consensus of the legal scholars), and qiyas (reasoning by analogy). The law, based on these sources, is elaborated in treatises written by jurist-scholars.
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