Objectives of Islamic Law: Why Does Allah Ask This of Us?

Occasion: Transcript of an Isha khatira delivered at Bayt Al-Karim on July 13, 2026 Source: Transcript of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed AbouSeif, watch the original video on YouTube

Tonight, in sha Allah, we begin a series in earnest: the objectives of the Sharia. And we have to begin from scratch, from the very beginning. We need to understand the position we are in, and why we do what Allah has asked us to do.

The question behind every command

When Allah tells you to pray, the first question that comes to people's minds is: why am I being required to do this? When Allah commands you to give your charity, a person may think: this is my money, I earned it honestly, why should I give it to anyone? Yet this is the command, and this is the obligation when you give zakat. And when Allah asks you to refrain from food and drink for twelve, thirteen, sometimes seventeen hours of the day, from the beginning of it to the end, that can seem strange. Why do I need to do that?

So we need to look at the purposes, the reasons, behind what Allah has asked of us. Think of it this way: you go to the doctor, and the doctor gives you a prescription. You take it to the pharmacy and begin to use the medicine. If someone asks why you need that medicine, you say: for healing, to get better, to return to my normal state when I am strong again. Is the example clear? Every single thing in our life has a reason. Nothing from Allah comes to us randomly. Everything we have comes with a reason and a purpose.

Why were we created? The parable of the celebration

Now ask yourself, from the very beginning: why did Allah, glory be to Him, create the human being? The question comes up: why did He bring me here, to do something right or something wrong? This is a common question, and everybody asks it. Why did Allah put me in this position? Why did He create me at all, if I am going to end up in the Fire?

Consider a celebration that I am hosting. I invite people to come, and out of my generosity I prepare big surprises and big gifts for everyone who attends. To those who come, I will give huge rewards, masha Allah. But suppose someone comes and behaves like a child, acts recklessly, makes trouble or spreads corruption. He needs discipline. Before he even entered the door, I had told him: you are here as my guest, and I will show you my generosity. But if you do something wrong, this is the discipline, this is the consequence that will follow. Does that make sense to everyone? When I asked you to come to my celebration from the beginning, was that a bad thing from me, or a good thing, for everyone who came?

It is the same with Allah. He prepared everything for the human being from the earliest beginning, to show His hospitality to everyone who would come to this world. Allah gave us provision out of His generosity, glory be to Him, and He guaranteed the needs of everyone who would come to this life, even before they came. Before you came, before you did anything, your money was there, your food was there, your health was there, your medicine was there, everything you would need. It is already guaranteed. You do not need to exhaust yourself searching for those things. What is asked of you? Just come to the celebration. And at the same time, go to your work, do what you need to do to receive that guaranteed provision. It is a sign for you, even before you arrive in this world.

This is exactly what Allah said in the Quran, and it is what the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: that Allah, glory be to Him, has assigned provision to each one of us. Whatever you face in your life is a kind of provision Allah has given you. But one must be well-mannered when coming to the celebration: this is His place, His area, His home, His mosque. We need to have that etiquette and that behavior when we come to His house. Allah invited us into this world to show us His generosity, so that we would not be in trouble.

The Quran was not sent to make you miserable

We need to understand this from the very beginning, from what Allah said to the Prophet ﷺ. Do you remember the verse, "We did not send down the Quran to you to…"?^[1] I asked who would help me with the next part. What does it mean? Allah did not reveal the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ so that he would be under pressure, frustrated, or in a hard position. So what is the opposite of hardness? Happiness. Allah, glory be to Him, brought us here and revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and to us after him, so that we would be happy. That is the reason we are here from the beginning. Got it?

The five purposes

Now we move on to see that the Sharia has five purposes. First, to preserve our religion. Then to preserve life, the human soul. Then to preserve the mind. The fourth is the offspring. And the fifth is the wealth we already have, or need to have. Why do we need to memorize these? Because for any action we are going to take in our life, we ask whether it helps us achieve these purposes or not. Based on that concept and that analysis, we can say whether it is halal or haram. Once we understand the purposes of the Sharia, we can say about my action: this is halal, this is haram.

Take riba, for example. Interest is presented as increasing the money in the hands, especially for the one who lends. But this is measured against the purposes of the Sharia: on one side money is being saved, while on the other side it is being destroyed. So it does not match the purposes of the Sharia, and it becomes haram for that reason. The same applies to a sale. A transaction means I give you something and in the same moment I take something: I sell you my glasses tonight, you take them and give me their price. But when someone lends money and the interest keeps increasing, the lender is pressing the borrower to lose both his money and his dignity.^[2] When we learn this way, we place ourselves in the position of a person who understands not just the action, but the purpose of the action.

So the first thing is our religion; we need to protect it, and it is the first thing to protect in our life. The second is the soul. I need to protect myself. Suppose I love sugar and sweets, but I am already in a diabetic condition. Should I eat more sugar and more sweets? Is it halal or haram? In this situation it is haram. Even if the sweet itself is halal, because I understand that one of the purposes of the Sharia is to protect my soul, and I am bringing hardship on my soul, it becomes haram. Take the knife: if I use it to slaughter a sheep or the like, it is halal; but used against a human being, it is haram. So I understand the purpose of the action and whether it matches the purposes of the Sharia, and based on that I judge that what I am doing is halal or haram.

The third is the mind. Without the mind I am not eligible to receive the message from Allah, glory be to Him; I am not accountable for the obligations that Allah gave to people who are of sound mind, not to those without it.

The fourth is the offspring. Without offspring we cannot continue our journey with the religion. When we understand this, we see why two men as spouses is haram: it does not match the purposes of the Sharia. If we were to bring two women to act as spouses, whether halal or haram, it simply does not make sense; it does not match the purposes of the Sharia. What gives us offspring is a male and a female coming together, giving us the next generation, and that generation gives another, and so on until the Day of Resurrection, all of them raising the name of Allah, glory be to Him.

Wealth: in the hand, not in the heart

The fifth comes at the end, and in terms of importance, wealth is the least important thing in our life. It is truly important to have it in our hands, but not to let it jump into my heart. Once money controls my heart, it displaces all four things that come before it. But when I hold money in my hand, and I think with my mind, and my mind goes straight because of a sound soul, and my soul takes its direction from my religion, then the money goes in the right direction.

Let us repeat the five: the religion, the soul, the mind, the offspring, and the wealth. How many are there? Five. Let us stop here, and continue next time with the ways in which Islam helps us protect our religion, in sha Allah.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the speaker refers to the verse in Surah Ta-Ha (20:2), ﴿مَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْقُرْآنَ لِتَشْقَىٰ﴾, "We did not send down the Quran to you that you be distressed"; he paraphrases the meaning and does not recite the whole verse, so it is not completed in the text. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: this passage on the transaction and interest is garbled in the transcript, so it is rendered conservatively and nothing is added to it.