The literal meaning of the Sharî‘ah, usually rendered as Islamic law, is the Path which God ordained for believers. This spiritual Path became highly articulated into various rules, such as ritual, moral and even legal rules, in the course of the early Islamic history.
This article intends to elucidate the soteriological meaning of the Sharî‘ah in Islam. This is primarily clarified in relation to the basic soteriology exposed in the Qur’ân. The concept of faith in the Qur’ân means to be guided by God to the Path in this world till the Day of Resurrection in the future, rather than the liberation from the original sin done in the mythical past.
The other concept, ummah，is the crucial key-term to understand the reason for the precise articulation of the Path. Being a genuine religious community, it never leaves out the socio-political sphere necessary for human life, where Muslims raise their family and live by economic activities. A believer who is, as the solitary one, faced with God cannot but live in, and also is responsible for, the Ummah in this world. Therefore, the Path necessarily contains many social rules.
Among several types of the Qur’anic discourses, the narrative of the eschatology most impressively reminds man of the transcendent dimension where man is ever faced with God. It is the fear of the eschatological Judgment that makes man realize both the vanity of this-worldly life and the true significance of his temporary action, making man aware of his own sins. And God forgives man who repents.
The Qur’ân keenly and concretely points out man’s intrinsic weakness or propensity to evil in the fact that man does not only commit sins but often evades selfawareness of his sins. God sets the Sharî‘ah for fallible Muslims to live in the Ummah. Without the sharî‘ah, the Ummah could not be maintained, and hence Muslims could not exist in history in a full sense. For the Sharî‘ah may remind Muslims of God at every moment of action, and bring them back from forgetfulness of God to faith.
