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Islam without Islamic law - liberalislam.net
"Let us look at the following verse of the Qur'an, whose anti-legal consequences have been overlooked by traditional Muslim scholars. It may be referred to hereafter as the "compulsion verse".
No compulsion is there in religion.
Rectitude has become clear from error.
{Surah 2 (al-Baqara), verse 256)
The above verse has traditionally been interpreted to be limited in applicability to Jews and Christians. The reasoning was simple: since these religious groups are held to be descended from God's revelations through previous prophets, they must be respected as "People of the Scripture" and not converted by force. It is important to note, though, that the verse itself makes no indication of having such a limited scope. It reads, quite simply, as a sweeping generalization. The implication of the compulsion verse is thus that Islam, in its ultimate form, must be free of coercion. The truest expression of the religion must rather be voluntary religious belief.
Now, let us ask a simple question: what is law? For that matter, what is the purpose of any institutionalized social regulation? The answer is obvious: coercion. Social constraints such as law exist for the purpose of suppressing the actions of individuals which are felt to be intolerable. A purely non-coercive code of behavior would have to consist not of law, but of a personal system of ethics which is not enforced by society.
As law is coercive, and if Islam must not be coercive, then there can be no "Islamic law". This possibility is ignored by both mediaeval Muslim scholars and modern conservatives. Once we realize that we have a choice between an "Islamic law" and an "Islamic ethic", a little thought will show the latter to arise naturally. "
lots more at link
"Let us look at the following verse of the Qur'an, whose anti-legal consequences have been overlooked by traditional Muslim scholars. It may be referred to hereafter as the "compulsion verse".
No compulsion is there in religion.
Rectitude has become clear from error.
{Surah 2 (al-Baqara), verse 256)
The above verse has traditionally been interpreted to be limited in applicability to Jews and Christians. The reasoning was simple: since these religious groups are held to be descended from God's revelations through previous prophets, they must be respected as "People of the Scripture" and not converted by force. It is important to note, though, that the verse itself makes no indication of having such a limited scope. It reads, quite simply, as a sweeping generalization. The implication of the compulsion verse is thus that Islam, in its ultimate form, must be free of coercion. The truest expression of the religion must rather be voluntary religious belief.
Now, let us ask a simple question: what is law? For that matter, what is the purpose of any institutionalized social regulation? The answer is obvious: coercion. Social constraints such as law exist for the purpose of suppressing the actions of individuals which are felt to be intolerable. A purely non-coercive code of behavior would have to consist not of law, but of a personal system of ethics which is not enforced by society.
As law is coercive, and if Islam must not be coercive, then there can be no "Islamic law". This possibility is ignored by both mediaeval Muslim scholars and modern conservatives. Once we realize that we have a choice between an "Islamic law" and an "Islamic ethic", a little thought will show the latter to arise naturally. "
lots more at link
