ABSTRACT
A discussion of the sources of religious laws is always complex and sometimes sensitive. It raises many issues, including first and foremost the extent to which a religious law is influenced or even formulated by human agents. No matter how revealed, divine or sacred the highest sources of a religious law may be held by the believers, the reality is that, at least in this world, it is not God (or Gods) who apply the law, but human beings. The question becomes: to what extent does a given religious law include human elaboration and maybe even innovation, and are these human contributions considered part of the religious law or just applications of it? In order to preserve the divine, revealed or sacred character of their law, it would seem, to an outsider at least, that some movements within the traditions go to great lengths to avoid recognising the human origin of some of the religious law, or when they recognise human agency, go to some length to limit its theoretical importance. In fact, going back to the purest divine, revealed or sacred sources and rejecting human and particularly institutional elaborations, has been the leitmotiv of many radical reformist movements – for example the Protestant Reformation (Sola Scriptura) or Wahhabism and Salafism. 1 Therefore, the role of human agency is one of the main issues that arises when discussing the sources of religious laws, and this comparative exercise will therefore address this issue.
