Quote Originally Posted by Nat Wilcox View Post
I have an Arab friend who is an expert on Islamic banking and finance (which is intimately connected to Islamic legal thinking), so I asked him to help me out with the question I just asked. Here is his answer. Please note that it is one answer (he says "I have argued" which is a sure sign he means that his answer is his considered opinion and that there is some controversy here...fyi).

I'm afraid that this more or less confirms what I thought from my own reading. Different writers use these terms in varying ways, so we're stuck with paying attention to context and not expecting too much consistency of usage across authors.

Also, it sounds like we should be a little suspicious of claims that something is a matter of Shari`a, as my pal suggests that such claims are frequently little more than a rhetorical device.

Nat

The differences in what many wrongly characterize as a rigid religion are what have driven the creation and the conflict between the various and many schools of Islamic thought. There is no simple answer for the question you posed to your friend or us here. It was a good question, one impossible to answer terms or any fashion combining both brevity and accuracy.

Best

Tom