What is the Sharī'ah?

From Arabic, of course, الشريع (translit. Ash-Sharī') "the way, the road, the path". The most trivial definition would be "Corpus Legium", or set of laws. Even if saying "set of laws" is a bit inexact, well, of course, that was a broad definition; because the main source of Islamic laws are the Qur'ān, the Sunnah and the Ummah Consensus. One could say "the main sources of Islāmic laws" since they are three put altogether, but the singular is more appropriate because they are a whole ensemble. One does not contradict the other: the Holy Qur'ān does not contradict the Sunnah and vice versa and the Consensus does not contradict any of the two and vice versa. The Sharī'ah is therefore no longer a mere set of principles on which the laws dictated by the Sharī'ah itself are based but it is   a methodology of Law derivation. Then, there is also a fourth source from which laws are derived, the Analogy, which is also present in secular jurisprudence. All four sources have their roots in the era of the Messenger (Peace be upon him) of Allāh جل جلاله . In a nutshell, then, the Sharī'ah includes all the four (4) sources.

How many Sharī'ahs have there been in history?

In Islām there are two categories of earthen messengers with a Divine Mission: the Messengers and the Prophets. The first are those who have been given each a new Sharī'ah that is different from the previous one, which means new, non-additional Divine Laws, a new Sunnah, and that is, a whole new code, in short. Islamic history records a total of three hundred and thirteen (313) Messengers since the night of time.* The latters, on the other hand, are those who were sent if a given people or community had lost the Way, without any new Sharī'ah except the order to make the group of people they were sent to follow the previous Sharī'ah which the last Messenger had left as a guidance. According to Islamic historical sources, the number of the latters  including the Messengers reaches approximately one hundred and twenty-four thousand (124,000). Therefore, who is a Prophet is not a Messenger, but who is a Messenger is, by definition, also a Prophet (because makes follow his own new Sharī'ah). The Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon him) is the last Messenger of Allāh and the Seal of the Prophets. His Sharī'ah is, therefore, the one we know today and that is definitive.

*Note: According to the Islamic conception, the night comes before the day and the latter, therefore, begins with the night. So according to this conception it is more suitable to say "since the night of times" rather than "since the dawn of the times".

What we know and what we do not

There are those who refer to the Sharī'ah only when speaking about prayer, or about the fasting of Ramadan or pilgrimage etc. ... but these actions are only a tiny part of it. What is not well-known is that the Sharī'ah proposes to the single Muslim a systematic lifestyle. By understanding the Sharī'ah it becomes clear that the life of an individual among other individuals within a Muslim society or not, is made of a continuous give and take: rights and duties. There are two macrocategories of rights: Divine Rights (which belong to Allāh) and Single Rights (which are for the Creation). The first includes the profession of Faith in Allāh, in the angels, in Allāh's Envoys, in the heavenly Books, in the Judgment Day, in the Destiny (for good luck or for bad luck) and in the Resurrection after death, the execution of collective prayer in the mosque five times a day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, purification of the goods possessed giving a small part of them to the poor and the needy** and, finally, the pilgrimage.

**Note.: This action is both an Allāh's Right and a right that expects to the individual. That is, the act of purification of possessed goods (which is made possible by giving a part of it to the poor) is the Right of Allāh, while the act of giving to the poor is a right of the poor.

The Sharī'ah not only dictates such laws but also establishes in detail when and how to implement these laws. For example, it establishes both the five daily prayers and when to perform such deeds and how as well, who can perform them and who cannot, why and when they cannot do so according to a precise and meticulous method. It establishes both that the "wealthy" individual must give a part of his property to the individual in need and when he should, or rather, reaching what sum of goods in his possession would the muslim be judged as "wealthy" and for how long he should have owned them; it also estabilishes whom (the receiving party) to give it to, or rather,when a person is considered "poor" by the Sharī'ah and therefore deserving of the auxiliary sum. Not to mention the exact quantity estabilished. The same applies to the rights of the individual which include an immense list and goes from simple transactions of valuable goods to marriage, from the ways of interacting with one's neighbors in everyday life to capital punishment, from the values of the family and the rights of close family members to the issues of inheritance after the muslim dies, without mentioning the other rights of neighbors, the rights of the community, the rights of those who are not Muslims, etc.
Another example for this section could be that of marriage.

The Sharī'ah states that two individuals of opposite sexes may (in some cases) or have to (in others) conjugate themselves through marriage. This theme is also majestically full-bodied: there are entire volumes in Arabic*** that deal only with this topic in the light of the Sharī'ah dictates about the right of dowry for the lady by establishing a minimum quantity and its reasons, the protection of babies and its laws, breastfeeding and its laws, child benefits, the rules of divorce and how it is implemented according to the Holy Qur'ān and the Sunnah, how many types of divorces there are, what is due to the woman in such circumstances and why; when, how and why the woman has the right to apply for divorce, if her husband did not grant her divorce, to who else she could ask etc. Really surprising! Don't you think? Yes, it is surprising, precisely because many people have a rather pessimistic conception of God, as a Being who would punish only His people without any regard for them, right? But if you open the Holy Qur'an, you can clearly see that much more importance is given to human rights than to the Rights of Allāh Himself! The same is true for the Six Authentic (6) books of the prophetic sayings (Sunnah) and all the others that deal with Islāmic Laws in the light of Qur'ān and the Sunnah itself; an Islamic jurisprudence book, for example, if composed of eight (8) volumes, one will notice that only two (2) describe the laws concerning the Rights of Allāh and the remaining six (6) describe Laws concerning the humanity and the Creation. So much so that those who cause discomfort or atrocity to creation but have faith, pray five times, fast, purify their possessions, go for Pilgrimage, on the Judgment Day, if the oppressed does not forgive him, the acts of submission to Allāh done by the oppressor will be given as a gift to the oppressed individual. In brief, the good deeds he has done will be absolutely useless. Unfortunately, dear friends, none of these topics will be dealt with in detail in the following pages as they are not part of the central topic of the book, that is, the status of the woman in Islām.

***N.B.: Arabic language has a motto: "use as few words as possible to express the maximum amount of information" as a symbol of stylistic and mental refinement of the speaker, formality and eloquence; the entire grammar bends in favor of this key concept of the language. Therefore, normally, one page of Arabic text translated into Italian or English would be equivalent to a space of almost two pages, now we could imagine the amount of informations within entire volumes in Arabic!