Truth About Islam

Legal Revelation or Human Innovation?

A Critical Look at Sharia’s Origins in Hadith Fabrication and Political Context

Sharia is often presented as divine law—unchanging, sacred, and revealed directly by God through Muhammad ﷺ. But is that really the case?

Islamic legal systems today, from Saudi Arabia to Iran, claim legitimacy from this divine origin story. Yet a closer examination of how Sharia was actually constructed reveals a far more human, political, and historically contingent development—one built on unverifiable hadiths, competing interests, and centuries of interpretive evolution.

So here’s the central question:
Is Sharia divine revelation—or a patchwork of post-prophetic power struggles codified into law?

Let’s peel back the layers.

⚖️ Part 1: What Is Sharia—And Where Did It Actually Come From?

The Myth:

“Sharia is the law of Allah, revealed in the Qur’an and perfectly exemplified by the Prophet’s Sunnah.”

The Reality:

Only about 500 out of 6,236 verses in the Qur’an pertain to legal matters—and even those are often ambiguous or context-dependent.

The overwhelming bulk of what is considered "Sharia" today comes from extra-Qur’anic sources:

Thousands of hadith reports attributed to Muhammad
Fatwas issued centuries later by jurists
Customary practices of early Arab society

That is, Sharia as we know it is not pure revelation—but legal tradition shaped by human consensus, dispute, and conjecture.

📚 Part 2: Hadith — The Legal Backbone Built on Sand

After Muhammad’s death, hundreds of thousands of sayings were falsely attributed to him.

Key Facts:

Imam Bukhari reportedly sifted through over 600,000 hadiths, accepting only ~7,000 with repetition (~2,600 unique).
Even then, no isnad (chain of narration) can be verified historically before the mid-2nd century AH (~750–800 CE).
Early hadith criticism literature itself admits massive forgery.

“We used to fabricate hadiths to support our political positions.”
— Abu ‘Ismah Nuh ibn Abi Maryam (known fabricator)

So how did these fabricated sayings gain the status of law?

Answer: Because political factions needed religious legitimacy.

🏛️ Part 3: Politics Birthed Jurisprudence

The Umayyads (661–750 CE) and Abbasids (750–1258 CE) ruled empires that needed uniform legal systems. They could not rely solely on the Qur’an—so they canonized hadith to expand and control law.

Examples:

Punishments like stoning for adultery and apostasy laws come not from the Qur’an, but from late hadiths.
The caliphate system, slavery regulation, and jihad doctrine were shaped by state interest, then justified through retroactive hadiths.

When state policy needed enforcement, “prophetic” sayings were manufactured:

“Obey the ruler even if he flogs your back.”

“Whoever leaves Islam—kill him.”

These hadiths conveniently reinforced power and criminalized dissent.

🧠 Part 4: Legal Contradictions Expose Human Origin

Even the four major Sunni schools (madhahib)—Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanbali—disagree widely on core legal rulings:

Legal Issue	Hanafi vs. Hanbali	Maliki vs. Shafi‘i
Apostasy punishment	Optional vs. mandatory	Different triggers
Age of Aisha’s marriage	9 vs. older age (rejected hadiths)	Varied
Music	Permissible vs. haram	Divergent views

If Sharia was divine, why can’t jurists agree?

Answer: Because Sharia is interpretive human construction—not revelation.

🧪 Part 5: Modern Outcomes of a Mythical Legal Infallibility

When countries apply Sharia today—built on unverifiable hadith—they inherit ancient tribalism as divine command:

Saudi Arabia: Beheadings for sorcery, based on weak hadiths.
Pakistan: Blasphemy laws punishing speech, rooted in fabricated reports.
Iran: Gender-based legal inequality, derived from medieval fiqh texts.

These systems invoke God’s name to enforce 7th–10th century Arabian norms—despite modern awareness that the source material is historically questionable at best.

The result?
Unquestionable law rooted in unverifiable claims and infallibility illusions.

🧩 Conclusion: Sharia Is Not Revelation. It’s Retrofitted Control.

The more one studies the origins of Sharia, the clearer the pattern becomes:

A tiny legal core in the Qur’an

Expanded massively by unverifiable hadiths

Justified politically by dynastic rulers

Standardized through selective scholarship

Reinforced today as divine, unquestionable law

But behind the veil of piety lies historical construction, contradiction, and power-protection—not divine decree.

If the law of God rests on a foundation of fabricated sayings, political interests, and shifting opinions, then it cannot be from God at all.