Why does Islam have so many rules?

No alcohol, no pork, no dating. Pray five times. Fast Ramadan. Heard one after another, the commands can make Islam feel like a room full of signs telling you where you can’t go.

Step back from the list and ask who gets to decide what good is. Feelings change, sometimes before the week is over. Societies change too, and history is full of respectable people defending things their grandchildren would call monstrous. Look at the 1934 Hollywood Production Code, where banning interracial relationships sat right alongside bans on crime and vulgarity as 'moral protection.'

Islam says the final word belongs to the One who made the person living under it. Most of life is broadly allowed. You don’t need a verse giving permission for every meal, colour, hobby or career. The boundaries get attention because that’s where desire argues, yet the permitted space between them is enormous. Allah didn’t send you into a maze where every unmarked step might be a sin.

The limits that do exist come from knowledge you don’t have about yourself. You can feel what you want right now, but you can’t see every person it’ll touch or what repeating it for ten years will make of you. A child hears “don’t touch” and sees a hand being restricted. The parent sees the burn before it happens.

That doesn’t make every command easy. Sometimes you understand the wisdom and still struggle, and sometimes the explanation you want doesn’t arrive. Submission shows itself precisely there, when Allah’s knowledge carries more weight than the pull inside you. Having the desire hasn’t made you a hypocrite. What you do with it is where the worship begins.

Rules without knowing Allah can feel like somebody else’s control. Once you know who He is, the same boundary can become care, even while it hurts to obey. When a command is difficult, take the question back to Him: do I trust the One who drew this line more than I trust the feeling that wants it moved? Islam means submission, and submission has never meant waiting until every command agrees with what you already wanted.

This is the short answer. Chapter 11 of the book takes it all the way.