Where is sharia law

Islamic scholars says Sharia is mainly a code of ethical conduct and about worship and charity but a part of it deals with crime. Sharia law divides offences into two general categories: "hadd" offences, which are serious crimes with set penalties, and "tazir" crimes, where the punishment is left to the discretion of the judge. Hadd offences include theft, which under the strictest interpretations of Sharia, can be punishable by amputating the offender's hand. There are many safeguards and a high burden of proof in the application of hadd penalties.

But experts say that often doesn't happen in practice. Some countries where Islamic law is applied adopt or enforce such punishments for hadd offences, and surveys have suggested attitudes of Muslims to harsh penalties for such offences vary widely. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the key moments from the Taliban's news conference. What have the Taliban said?

Who are the Taliban? It is this role of individual reason which enables Islamic law to be dynamic and adaptive to new situations. For example, prominent Persian jurist Abu Hamid al—Ghazali d. We see this in the development of different schools of thought. As a result, different schools madhhab of law developed in different regions, each offering slightly different conclusions about what God wanted Muslims to do in a given situation. While jurists disagreed with each other on particular issues, many recognised that difference of opinion ikthilaf was inevitable and indeed legitimate, as long as the basic principles of Islam were upheld.

For Muslims today, there is more plurality in Islamic law than ever. Suitably qualified jurists can issue fatwas, or statements of opinion, on particular matters of Muslim life. So Muslims, particularly those outside Muslim—majority countries, are under no compulsion to follow every fatwa issued by clerics. Access to religious knowledge is becoming democratized and globalised.

According to the traditional Muslim narrative, during the early years of Islam ijtihad was regularly undertaken by suitably qualified jurists. In the colonial period, Muslim reformists argued that if European imperialism was to be overthrown, ijtihad and Islamic law needed to be revived to help Muslims respond to the situation.

In a similar way, today some jurists are recognising the need for revived ijtihad. With social and technological change bringing about situations never before encountered by Muslims, some think a new fiqh is needed which specifically addresses the situation of Muslims in minority contexts, including in Britain.

Such scriptural punishments for these acts and indeed, in some cases even the very condemnation of them horrify people today. However, there are several important conditions that mitigate the severity of these punishments:. For it is better for the authority to err in mercy than to err in punishment. Altogether, then, it seems that the hudud were intended to be harsh enough to ward Muslims off from committing the crimes, but with standards of proof high enough so that the stated punishments were rarely carried out.

They may have faced other punishments handed down by the judges, who could use their discretion to hand down punishments in line with the circumstances of the case at hand. Depending on the crime, those punishments could still have been severe. Many consider these rules to have been designed for a specific historical context and that they are inapplicable for the very different modern world.

In recent years there have been a number of surveys of British Muslim attitudes. These tend to show that British Muslims overwhelmingly feel a strong sense of belonging to Britain. But regarding Muslim attitudes to Islamic law, the polling questions are often very poorly worded and sensationalist, so we learn very little about their actual views, including on the specific issue of the introduction of the hudud punishments.

It may indicate anything from respondents feeling the question was too simplistic to answer adequately, to having given the topic little thought, to being confused or conflicted about the issue. No doubt some will be thinking of the re—establishment of laws that promote socially conservative values. But others may mean specific changes to English family law, such as the legal recognition of Islamic religious marriage, which would be no bad thing see below.

As with the hudud, the reality is more complex. The particular example about testimony is subject to great debate and disagreement among modern Muslim scholars. Today, some Muslim scholars argue that it was uncommon for women to be involved in commercial transactions in early Islam; the stipulation for two women as witnesses was not a comment on their mental capacity but a reflection of their likely lack of expertise in such matters, with one being able to support the other.

Some Muslims will therefore see this stipulation as unnecessary in a modern world with much greater female education. In the face of non—Muslim assumptions about their oppression, increasingly many Muslim women in the West and beyond are describing their religion, at its origins, as one of female liberation.

This is well documented in a range of recent studies, such as by Shelina Janmohamed [16] and Philip Lewis and Sadek Hamid. Of course we must be careful here. Most academics studying Islam and Muslim societies give a broad definition of Sharia. This reflects Muslim scholars struggling for centuries over how best to understand and practice their faith.

Any observant Muslim would consider him or herself a Sharia adherent. It is impossible to find a Muslim who practices any ritual and does not believe himself or herself to be complying with Sharia.

Defining Sharia as a threat, therefore, is the same thing as saying that all observant Muslims are a threat. The CSP report authors—none of whom has any credentials in the study of Islam— concede this point in several places.

The authors, in attempting to show that Sharia is a threat, construct a static, ahistorical, and unscholarly interpretation of Sharia that is divorced from traditional understandings and commentaries of the source texts. But this argument ignores how believers themselves understand and interpret that text over time.

The equivalent would be saying that Jews stone disobedient sons to death Deut. In a more secular context it is similar to arguing that the use of printed money in America is unconstitutional— ignoring the interpretative process of the Supreme Court.

In reality, Sharia is personal religious law and moral guidance for the vast majority of Muslims. Muslim scholars historically agree on certain core values of Sharia, which are theological and ethical and not political.

Moreover, these core values are in harmony with the core values at the heart of America. Muslims consider an interpretation of Sharia to be valid so long as it protects and advocates for life, property, family, faith, and intellect. Muslim tradition overwhelmingly accepts differences of opinion outside these core values, which is why Sharia has survived for centuries as an ongoing series of conversations. Sharia has served Muslims who have lived in every society and in every corner of the planet, including many Americans who have lived in our country from before our independence down to the present day.

Recent statements from Muslim religious authorities, such as the Amman Message, show the dynamic, interpretive tradition of Islam in practice. Forbidden actions, on the other hand, should not be performed. Most actions are categorized as permitted, which means that they are not encouraged or discouraged. Sharia law applies to all aspects of life, including public behavior, personal behavior, and even personal beliefs.

Most nations that follow Sharia law have their own interpretations.