3.2 Sharia Law

Islam is a religion that purports to encompass a whole way of life and system of government, in defiant opposition to other religious, or secular, modes of social organisation. As in the seventh century, Islamic life is codified in Sharia law. There are around six thousand Sharia laws which govern the private and public lives of Islam’s followers.

Where established as the law of the land, Sharia law is accompanied by religious police with powers of arrest and prosecution. Sharia law is illiberal – it’s blasphemy laws (a wide net capturing any questioning of the Koran or the Prophet) apply not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims as well.

Sharia law prescribes, for example, religious observances such as worship, fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, etc. It specifies rules for marriage (including polygamy), divorce, child custody and inheritance. It mandates specific funeral and burial rituals. It contains dietary laws, including the prohibition of pork and alcohol. It includes animal slaughter requirements (which are incompatible with those used in the West). It prohibits gambling. It mandates a dress code. Sharia law has rules about financial dealings, taxes, trade, banking and finance. It regulates a vast range of morals and manners. It decrees homosexuality, apostasy and blasphemy as crimes.

Sharia law is harshly punitive. Homosexuals can be put to death (nine of the ten nations that formally consider homosexuality to be a crime punishable by death are entirely Muslim; the other is majority Muslim country). Muslim apostates and blasphemers are eligible for persecution up to and including death. Under Sharia law, criminals can be mutilated.

Sharia law is patriarchal - women are not treated as equal under Sharia Law in family matters such as divorce and adultery, and a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man. Its legal standards are lax – in Sharia criminal law, forensic evidence isn’t treated as important, defendants must represent themselves in court, there is no trial by jury, no cross-examination of witnesses and no appeals. The testimony of a non-Muslim can be completely discarded.

Sharia law has global ambitions. Muslims make up around a quarter of the world’s population – those in the world’s 57 majority-Muslim countries live under the prescripts of Sharia law and many Muslims in non-Muslim countries desire to live under Sharia, not secular, law. A 2015 survey in the US found that 51% of Muslims in the US would prefer to live under Sharia law rather than under the US Constitution. England and Canada allow Sharia courts to adjudicate on family and domestic matters.

It is absurd to base a modern criminal justice system on literal interpretations of ancient religious texts. It is irresponsible for any leftist to be agnostic on Sharia law, or to be an apologist for it in deference to the politics of identity. Sharia Law encroachment poses an anti-secular, illiberal, anti-feminist threat in the West.