Eighth Point: It is about the two kinds of law in the Islamic Shari’ah and the marks of Islam.

EIGHTH POINT

It is necessary to explain a principle of reality concerning this. It is like this:

Just as there are two sort of rights, ‘personal rights’ and ‘general rights,’ which are considered to be a sort of ‘Allah’s rights,’ so too in the matters of the Shari‘a, certain matters concern individuals, and others, with regard to generality, concern the public; these last are called ‘the marks of Islam.’ Since these marks concern all, all participate in them. To interfere in them without the consent of the public is an infringement of the public’s rights. The most minor of those marks (a matter of the status of Sunna) is the equivalent of the greatest matter in regard to importance. They directly concern the whole World of Islam. Those who are trying to break the luminous chain to which all the great figures of Islam since the Era of the Prophet till now have been bound, and to destroy it and corrupt it, and those who assist them, should dwell on what a ghastly error they are making. If they possess the smallest grain of intelligence, they should tremble.