Conclusion

Conclusion

Sacred laws change according to the ages. Indeed, in one era different prophets may come, and they have come. Since subsequently to the Seal of the Prophets (UWBP), his Greater Shari‘a is sufficient for all peoples in every age, no need has remained for different laws. However, in secondary matters, the need for different schools has persisted to a degree. Just as clothes change with the change of the seasons and medicines change according to dispositions, so sacred laws change according to the ages, and their ordinances change according to the capacities of peoples. Because the secondary matters of the ordinances of the Shari‘a look to human circumstances; they come according to them, and are remedial.

At the time of the early prophets, since social classes were far apart and men’s characters were both somewhat coarse and violent, and their minds, primitive and close to nomadism, the laws at that time came all in different forms, appropriate to their conditions. There were even different prophets and laws in the same continent in the same century. Then, since with the coming of the Prophet of the End of Time (UWBP), human beings as though advanced from the primary to the secondary stage, and undergoing numerous revolutions and upheavals reached a position at which all the human peoples could receive a single lesson and listen to a single teacher and act in accordance with a single law, no need remained for different laws, nor was there necessity for different teachers. But the schools of law multiplied because they were not all at completely the same level and did not proceed in the same sort of social life. If, like students of a school of higher education, the vast majority of humankind were clothed in the same sort of social life and attained the same level, then all the schools could be united. But just as the state of the world does not permit that, so the schools of law cannot be the same.

If you say: The truth is one; how can the different ordinances of the four and twelve schools all be true?

The Answer: The same water governs in five different ways in five ill people of different disposition, thus: for one, the water is a cure for his illness and medically necessary. For another, it is as harmful as poison for his sickness and medically prohibited. For another, it causes a small amount of harm and is reprehensible medically. For another the water is beneficial and without harm; according to medicine that is Sunna for him. And for yet another it is neither harmful nor beneficial; he can drink it with good health