Questioner: Huzoor, my question is about a word which is used generally for Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. but I do not agree with that word. That word is Ghair Shari Nabi. This word is also found in our literature. But it means that a prophet who is against Sharia.
Huzoor (rh): No, it doesn’t mean that.
Questioner: Huzoor, I want to explain in this way that I have studied a book of Qazi Muhammad Nazim Lailpuri Sahib. He has said in his book that there should be a word Ghair Shari Nabi. It means that a prophet who has not the orders of Sharia in his Wahi or revelation. But Ghair Shari Nabi, he said that a momin [believer] cannot be Ghair Shari.
Huzoor (rh): No, no, this is just pedantic. Being too grammatical, far too accurate. Some scholars are like this. But these words which have found a meaning in a long usage and people can understand them as a term. They should not be attacked like this on the finer points of grammar and things. Tashree or Shari in reality here means one thing and the same, one and the same thing. What Qazi Sahib says Tashree means, Tashree means to introduce a Sharia or to pass a Sharia on to somebody. ‘Shara, yuSharayu’ means somebody who passed a law on to some other person, passed a book on to some other person. So in reality that is not also correct. If you become more pedantic then the whole use of Tashree is totally inapplicable to prophets at all. Because the early scholars in Islam, a great majority among them believed that Prophet Muhammad (sa) was not Sharay. Sharay was God and it is wrong to say that he issued a law. He received a law, he never issued a law.
So pedanticism doesn’t end there where you suggest it will go further. And here it is not pedanticism, it is exactly the situation as we find in the previous century and earlier. Now people have started using the phrase Sharay al-Islam. It is a very misleading phrase because this is exactly what the Christian Orientalists claimed that Shariat of Islam was made by Prophet Muhammad and he is the Sharay. This is incorrect. In all the books of jurisprudence and other books where the word Sharay is used, in the older classical literature, you will not come across this word referring to Prophet Muhammad (sa). They will never use the word Sharay al-Islam. They would say Sharay is God and Prophet Muhammad (sa) is the recipient of Sharia. So Tashree is a step further. No man can be a Tashree Nabi in that sense. When you say Shari Nabi, then this can be on the receiving end as well as on the giving end.
Shari means who has a Sharia of his own. This word of his own is not mentioned in the word Shari but it is understood as such. So there is nothing wrong with the word Shari. By Shari Nabi we understand the one who has a Sharia. Everybody has a Sharia. You have a Sharia too. Sharia of Islam is your Sharia. When we say a Nabi is a Shari Nabi, we mean the one to whom a Sharia was revealed.
