In Modern Islam, law, i.e., Shari’a, is explained and interpreted based on high human ideals, which are the essence of the religion of Islam. These ideals include rationality, justice, freedom, mercy, chivalry, tolerance, empathy, ethics, human dignity, spirituality, peace, rule of law, human rights, and attaining high moral states. To derive Shari’a law, in addition to the Scripture and Tradition, independent reason is applied to ensure that such a body of law is compatible with human nature and rationality.

In Modern Islam, the Glorious Qur’an, as the Word of God and the Final Testament, is considered the most important source of law. Nonetheless, its interpretation should be onsistent with reason, human nature, invariant findings of science, and the absolutely authentic narrations from the infallible Imams, which are confirmed by rationality, justice and other mentioned human values.

In Modern Islam, narrations, which meet the criteria of authenticity from the point of view the Principles of Jurisprudence, the Science of the Narrators of the Tradition, and the Science of Interpreting Narration, can be referenced as long as they are consistent with the general spirit of Islam encompassing rationality, justice, human rights, human dignity, and others mentioned human high values. In the event of a contradiction between a narrated hadeeth and principal human values, principles of reason, and Devine human nature, it will be determined that such a hadeeth does not meet the main condition which is required for its validity, the reason being that the infallible Imam’s words should never contradict human nature, justice, rationality, and other sacred Devine and human values.