Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

Since social changes are inevitable, social institutions should also welcome
the changes. Law as a sosical institution should have the means of changes. Islamic
law employs revelation as a source and the other sources derived by human being
as well.
Social structure and revelation have important roles in the formation of Islamic
law.Throughout the history, Islamic law has effected social structure and vice
versa. Therefore, the interaction between Islamic law and social change keeps a
close and dynamic relationship. The Quran and Sunna (tradition of the prophet) as
the revelation sources have no statements which hinder economical and technical
developments in a society. The fact that Islamic law tries to stop harmful social
changes has been mistakenly interpreted; and the opinion that Islamic law has no
permission and tolerance to any kind of changes is deliberately pronounced by
which public opinion has been misleaded.In the period after revelation, structures
of Islamic socities living in different parts of the world have played important role in
the formation of Islamic law and the statements of law. In this period, statements
and/or law according to social changes had been enacted so as to give chances to
the changes and not to lag behind social changes. The statements about any subjects
which might lead to social distabilization had been altered. In addition, when
individuals can be vulnerable to harmful codes of practice through the imposes of
social changes and opposition to those changes; in some cases the statements
which were described by the Quran and Sunna as a tradition or the statements - to
be obeyed - produced by Islamic scholars' interpretation have been subject to tolerance.

In Islamic socities, a lot of changes have been observed as a result of practice
and advises on law, morality, prayer, and belief. Islam has succesfully played a
significant role in social changes. This success mainly depends on the facts that Islam
has conveyed proper messages to human being, and has never ignored social demands, and has closely followed social changes, and has employed belief, morality
and law as a whole in order to reach the aim.