Religious law refers to ethical and moral codes taught by religious traditions. Examples include Canon law (Christian law), customary halakha (Jewish law), Hindu law, and sharia (Islamic law.
The two most prominent systems, canon law and shari'a, differ from other religious laws in that Canon law is the codification of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox law as in civil law, while shari'a derives many of its laws from juristic precedent and reasoning by analogy (as in a common law tradition).
Read more about Religious Law: Established Religions and Religious Institutions, Bahá'í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or law:
“We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians ... how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedient’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)