ORIGIN OF MUSLIM LAW

The place of Muslims Law's origin is Arabia where Mohammad promulgated Islam. Basically it is of divine origin that is to say Muslim Law originates from divinity. It is that law which is established by a communication ( Khitab) from God with reference to men's acts, expressive either of demand or indifference on his part or being merely declaratory. The entire system of Muslim Law as well as of theology, ritual and private ethics ahve been built upon two foundations-the Quran and the 'Traditions' ( Sunnah and Ahadi's). The Pre-Islamic customs are hardly referred to by the Muslim Jurists or elucidating the law.

The Quran , The Quran which is the divine communication and revelation to the Prophet of Islam was the first and the great legislative Code of Islam. "It professes to report verbatim a series of communications made to the Prophet through the angel Gabriel on a great number of different occasions during the last twenty years of his life and the fiction is so strictly kept up that he is addressed throughout in the second person. Practically, Wilson says, "we have in it the emanations of Mohammad's own brain under conditions of abnormal strain and excitement as he concentrated his attention on one after another of the problems that he was called upon to solve."

Before going to elaborate the origin and development of law under the subject it is very essential to examine the correct denomination for it. Various terms used for the subject are 'Islamic Law' or 'Muslim Law'  or 'Mohammadan law' with its different  variants strictly speaking, the Mohammedanism; and the people who follow it are Muslims not Mohammadans.

The system of law developed by the Muslim Jurists is 'Fiqh' and the terms 'Islamic Law' or 'Muslim law' are used synonymously with it the former refers to to religion and the later refers to the followers of the religion so no controversy arises as far as the practice of the expression Mohammadan is concern though it may also be used synonymously with the terms 'Islamic Law' or 'Muslim Law' as it also refers to the Prophet Mohammad the founder of Islam and the Islamic Jurisprudence yet it is regarded that this expression rooms to be more appropriate for India as well as some other Countries where only a part of the 'Fiqh' is applied to Muslims. 

For the original term  'Muslim '(Molsem) the expressions 'Mussalman' or 'Mohammadan' are used. The word 'Muslim' or 'Moslem' denotes 'one who adopts the faith of Islam. This wordis anoun of the word Islam (Aslama) which means 'submission to the will of God'. The expression 'Mussalman' is a combination of Moslem and Iman which denotes the followers of Islam who have faith (Iman) in God. Similarly the term 'Mohammadan' refers to the follower of the Prophet Mohammad. Just like the followers fo Christ is the same meaning is hidden, behind all these. But the term 'Mohammadan' if strictly used while talking of 'Mohammadan Law' as in India or same other non-Muslim countries, then it will be looking more elegant and proper.