Secular legal categories do not map onto but erase shari’a’s internal classification schemes

Evidence

The second way of describing Safwat’s division between (secular) law and (religious) morality is analytic. It follows the conceptual implications of the fact that his reading cuts right across the famous shari¯‘a classification—‘iba¯da¯t (rules governing relations between God and the faithful), mu‘a¯mala¯t (rules governing proper behavior between the faithful), and hudu¯d (rules defining limits to the behavior of the faithful through penalties). Modern secular law not only excludes the first as being beyond its purview. It also redraws the distinctions applicable to proper behavior and punishments in terms of “civil law” and “criminal law.” It does all this in accordance with different principles. Furthermore, Safwat’s division deliberately ignores the fivefold shari¯‘a ranking of acts—required (wa¯jib), recommended (mustahabb), indifferent (muba¯h), discouraged (makru¯h), and forbidden (hara¯m). — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1163

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows concrete taxonomy: shari’a’s tripartite (ibadat, mu’amalat, hudud) and fivefold (wajib/mustahabb/mubah/makruh/haram) rankings, which secular civil/criminal law cuts across.
• XREF: The erasure-of-native-categories mechanism corroborates how Cooper shows ‘neutral’ frameworks displace prior moral orders.