Third Category: Clarifying the Lawgiver’s intent in bringing the legally responsible person under the rulings of the Sharia.
It comprises several issues.
Issue One: The Sharia was instituted to draw the legally responsible person away from the prompting of his own whim, so that he may be a servant of Allah by choice just as he is a servant of Allah by necessity. The evidence for this includes the following:
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The explicit texts declaring that all creatures were created to worship Allah and to live under His commands and prohibitions. Allah, Exalted is He, says: “I did not create the jinn and humankind except to worship Me” (al-Dhāriyāt 51:56), along with many other verses that command worship in both its general and detailed forms. All of these return to the imperative of obeying Allah in every circumstance and submitting to His rulings at all times—that is the essence of worship.
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The passages that censure the violation of this purpose: the prohibitions against disobeying Allah’s commands, the condemnation of those who turn away from His law, and the threats of punishment in this world and the next.
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Common experience and custom attest that neither religious nor worldly interests are realized when a person abandons himself to his own whims and pursues his personal aims unchecked. This is well known; hence people agree on censuring anyone who follows his passions, and their consensus testifies to the soundness of that judgment.
Therefore, no one may claim that the Sharia was framed merely to satisfy human fancies and private agendas.
Once it is understood that the Sharia was instituted for human benefit, those benefits accrue only in the manner and within the limits prescribed by the Lawgiver—not according to people’s whims and cravings. For that very reason the legal duties weigh heavily upon the soul.
On this foundation several principles are built.
First: Every action undertaken solely in deference to personal desire, with no regard for a command, a prohibition, or a lawful concession, is invalid; for every deed must have a motive that impels it and an inducement that calls one to it