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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Discursive Theology Volume 1 Preface بسم‌ اللّه‌ الرّحمن‌ الرّحيم In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful Reflection, intellection and freewill are among the most manifest peculiarities of the human being. Throughout his life, man engages in the discovery of the universe by utilizing these features and on the basis of which he chooses a particular way and order in a bid to give answers to his material and spiritual needs.

In other words, human actions in both the individual and social realms of his life demand that they emanate and must be patterned from a kind of attitude about the universe. The totality of these methods and attitudes is the same with what is technically called “religion” which may vary according to the type of worldview of individuals. In a broader classification, religion can be divided into two, viz. theistic and atheistic religion.

In the same manner, theistic religion can be classified into monotheistic and non-monotheistic, and monotheistic religion, in turn, can be grouped into original (immune from distortion) and non-original (distorted). On this basis, man has never been and will never be able to live without religion.

What is meant by those who technically have no religion is that they have not accepted the theistic religion, and the great mission of the prophets of God is primarily to introduce the original theistic religion to mankind – the religion whose main slogan is total submission to the One and Only God: ﴿ إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللَّهِ الإِسْلامُ ﴾ “Indeed, with Allah religion is Islam.” [^1] Submission to God means not to worship anyone or anything other than God and to obey the Divine laws and decrees.

These laws and decrees are what are technically called sharī‘ah : ﴿ لِكُلٍّ جَعَلْنَا مِنْكُمْ شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا ﴾ “For each [community] among you We had appointed a code [of law] and a path.” [^2] According to what have been mentioned in the verses of the Qur’an and Prophetic sayings ( aḥādīth ), the Divine sharī‘ah is limited to five, viz.

those of Prophet Nūḥ (Noah), Ibrāhīm (Abraham), Mūsā (Moses), ‘Īsā (Jesus), and the Holy Prophet ( ‘a ),[^3] the last one being the final[^4] and known as the Islamic sharī‘ah and Islamic creed. The heavenly sharī‘ah s are identical and the same in terms of the foundations and principles of beliefs.

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