Jurists Quotes
Mehmet’s father Murat had just died. There was a custom in Islam that the new Sultan have all his brothers executed so that there would be absolute certainty who was the legitimate Sultan and that dissenting forces should not rally around another son of the old Sultan to have a regime change and/or a civil war. Stability and certainty in the line of succession was critical to the Muslims in that the Sultan was not only the civil ruler, but the highest religious authority as well. He had the power of the Christian Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor together. The struggle between the Sunnis and the Shiites which has overwhelmed Islamic unity was originally all about who the successor to Muhammad would be.
Muslims are divided about the role of the Islamic religious courts. Some believed that these should be the only courts and should govern all law, religious and civil on the grounds that there are no real differences in Islam. Others believe, as Jammal put forth, that religious courts should only deal with religious and personal matters. Still others believe that these is no place in modern society for religious courts. This debate echoes the debate that took place in Christianity and Judaism, but the vast majority of these have concluded that there is no place for religious courts
Many fundamentalist Muslims, regardless of the history, hold abortion to be impermissible since no one can tell exactly when the fetus is given a soul. Other Muslims believe abortion is moral and permissible in the early stages of pregnancy but ot later. The Jewish tradition and law before Islam was that the fetus became a life as soon as the head appears in childbirth. Thus abortion is permissible.
