Antinomianism - Islam

Islam

In Islam, the law—which applies not only to religion, but also to areas such as politics, banking, and sexuality—is called sharīʿah (شريعة), and it is traditionally organized around four primary sources:

1. the Qurʾān, which is Islam's central religious text;
2. the sunnah, which refers to actions practised during the time of the prophet Muḥammad, and is often thought to include the ḥadīth, or recorded words and deeds of Muḥammad;
3. ijmāʿ, which is the consensus of the ʿulamāʾ, or class of Islamic scholars, on points of practice;
4. qiyās, which—in Sunnī Islam—is a kind of analogical reasoning conducted by the ʿulamāʾ upon specific laws that have arisen through appeal to the first three sources; in Shīʿah Islam, ʿaql ("reason") is used in place of qiyās

Actions, behavior, or beliefs that are considered to violate any or all of these four sources—primarily in matters of religion—can be termed "antinomian". Depending on the action, behavior, or belief in question, a number of different terms can be used to convey the sense of "antinomian": shirk ("association of another being with God"); bidʿah ("innovation"); kufr ("disbelief"); ḥarām ("forbidden"); etc.

As an example, the 10th-century Sufi mystic Mansur Al-Hallaj was executed for shirk for, among other things, his statement ana al-Ḥaqq (أنا الحق), meaning "I am the Truth" and, by implication—as al-Ḥaqq ("the Truth") is one of the 99 names of God in Islamic tradition—"I am God." Another individual who has often been termed antinomian is Ibn al-ʿArabi, a 12th–13th century scholar and mystic whose doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd ("unity of being") has sometimes been interpreted as being pantheistic, and thus shirk.

Apart from individuals, entire groups of Muslims have also been called antinomian. One of these groups is the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿīs, who have always had strong millenarian tendencies arising partly from persecution directed at them by Sunnīs. Influenced to a certain extent by Gnosticism, the Ismāʿīlīs developed a number of beliefs and practices—such as their belief in the imāmah and an esoteric exegesis of the Qurʾān—that were different enough from Sunnī orthodoxy for them to be condemned as shirk and, hence, to be seen as antinomian. Certain other groups that evolved out of Shīʿah belief, such as the Alawites and the Bektashis, have also been considered antinomian. The Bektashis, particularly, have many practices that are especially antinomian in the context of Islam, such as the consumption of alcohol, the non-wearing of the ḥijāb ("veil") by women, and gathering in the cemevi in preference to the mosque.