Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Shari'a and church buildings

Am now in the process of finishing up a very helpful book called The Spirit of the Islamic Law. (Full info is below.) I hope over the next week or two to include some quotes from this book on the blog. Here is the first one, on what the Islamic state looks like when it follows the Sharii3a (Shari'a):

Churches, synagogues, and other non-Muslim places of worship were restricted to locations outside the central public areas of the city. Usually they were located in the residential quarters where those who frequented them lived. The law placed restrictions on the building of new non-Muslim places of worship, even though these restrictions were not always enforced. In principle, non-Muslim communities remained constant, while only the community of Muslims was free to grow by way of proselytization. New mosques could therefore be built as needed, but non-Muslim places of worship could for the most part be only repaired or replaced.


The Spirit of the Islamic Law p. 149
Bernard G. Weiss
The University of Georgia Press 1998

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