script has vowel signs in red for the correct pronunciation of the language. Before it took its final form, the sharia was adjusted to take into account the customary laws ( urf ) of the various regions as well as the laws of the state on political and social order ( siyasa sharia ). Customary laws, however, retained their strength in large parts of the countryside and continued to bypass the sharia in matters such as the inheritance of land by daughters. In most regimes, the ruler or his officials dealt routinely with matters of state security and sent only selected cases to the qazi (judge).
The qazi , appointed by the state in each city or locality, often acted as an arbitrator in disputes, rather than as a strict enforcer of the sharia . A group of religious-minded people in medieval Islam, known as Sufis, sought a deeper and more personal knowledge of God through asceticism ( rahbaniya ) and mysticism. The more society gave itself up to material pursuits and pleasures, the more the Sufis sought to renounce the world ( zuhd ) and rely on God alone ( tawakkul ). In the eighth and ninth centuries, ascetic inclinations were elevated to the higher stage of mysticism ( tasawwuf ) by the ideas of pantheism and love.
Pantheism is the idea of oneness of God and His creation which implies that the human soul must be united with its Maker. Unity with God can be achieved through an intense love for God ( ishq ), which the woman-saint Rabia of Basra (d. ) preached in her poems. Bayazid Bistami (d.
), an Iranian Sufi, was the first to teach the importance of submerging the self ( fana ) in God. Sufis used musical concerts ( sama ) to induce ecstasy and stimulate emotions of love and passion. Sufism is open to all regardless of religious affiliation, status and gender. Dhulnun Misri (d.
), whose grave can still be seen near the Pyramids in Egypt, declared before the Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil, that he ‘learnt true Islam from an