Shari’a is an Arabic word meaning “path” or “way.” Today the term is used most commonly to mean “Islamic law,” the detailed system of religious law developed by Muslim scholars in the first three centuries of Islam and still in force among fundamentalists today.
Shari’a tries to describe in detail all possible human acts, dividing them into permitted (halal) and prohibited (haram). It subdivides them into various degrees of good or evil such as obligatory, recommended, neutral, objectionable or forbidden. This vast compendium of rules regulates all matters of devotional life, worship, ritual purity, marriage and inheritance, criminal offenses, commerce and personal conduct. It also regulates the governing of the Islamic state and its relations to non-Muslims within the state as well as to enemies outside the state. Shari’a influences the behavior and worldview of most Muslims, even in secular states where it forms no part of the law of the land.
Islam teaches that shari’a, as God’s revealed law, perfect and eternal, is binding on individuals, society and state in all its details. By logical extension, any criticism of shari’a is heresy. Muslims who deny the validity of shari’a in any way are labeled as non-Muslims (infidels) or apostates (those who convert to another religion) by traditionalists and Islamists. As such, they face the threat of being prosecuted for apostasy, a crime that carries the death penalty in shari’a.
The mandates of shari’a are extremely harsh compared to modern Western standards. They infringe on many modern principles of human rights, religious freedom, and equality of all before the law. For example:
Hudud punishments are the severe penalities prescribed by shari’a for offenses defined as being against God himself. The punishments for these crimes are seen as divinely ordained and cannot be changed by humans. These include 100 lashes or stoning to death as punishment for adultery; 80 lashes for false accusation of adultery; amputation of limbs for theft; 40 or 80 lashes for drinking alcohol; imprisonment, amputation or death (by crucifixion in serious cases) for highway robbery; and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. Methods of execution for apostasy can include decapitation, crucifixion, burning, strangling, drowning, impaling, and flaying. Apostates are denied a decent burial after their deaths, and the Muslims who participate in killing them are promised an eternal reward in paradise.
Discrimination on the basis of religion is fundamental to shari’a. By religious edict, Islam must be dominant; only Muslims are considered to be full citizens. Jews and Christians are defined as dhimmis (literally “protected” i.e. permitted to live). However this protection is on condition that they do not bear arms, know their lowly place in society, treat Muslims with respect, and pay a special poll tax (jizya).
Shari‘a divides the world into two opposing domains: the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb). Muslims are supposed to wage jihad to change the House of War (where non-Muslims are dominant) into the House of Islam, dominated by Muslims. While some modern Muslims reject this aggressive understanding of jihad, and see it merely as a strengthening of personal faith, most agree that jihad includes defending Muslim territory and Muslims from any form of aggression; this leaves the door open to interpreting any conflict involving Muslims as a case of defensive jihad. Islamic terror groups justify their atrocities by references to the shari’a rules on jihad.
Shari’a discriminates on the basis of gender. Men are regarded as superior. Women are treated as deficient in intelligence, morals and religion, and must therefore be protected from their own weaknesses. Shari’a rules enforce modesty in dress and behavior and the segregation of the sexes. These regulations place women under the legal guardianship of their male relatives. Women are inherently of less value than men in many legal rulings. A man is allowed up to four wives, but women can have only one husband. A man can divorce his wife easily; a woman faces great obstacles should she want a divorce from her husband. A daughter inherits half as much as a son, and the testimony of a female witness in court is worth only half that of a male witness. In cases of murder, the compensation for a woman is less than that given for a man.
Shari’a courts often display a clear gender bias. This is seen in the widespread practice of accusing rape victims of illicit sexual relations (zina), an offense which carries punishments ranging from imprisonment and flogging to death by stoning.
Female genital mutilation is widespread among some Muslim communities, especially in Egypt, East Africa, Yemen, and Indonesia. Many Muslim leaders see the practice as essential for preserving women’s chastity on which family honor largely depends.
In shari’a there are differences between the various schools of law as to the extent of what a woman may reveal in public. The Hanafi and Maliki schools of law permit face and hands to be revealed in public, thus there is no need for a veil over the face. Among Hanbalis there are two opinions, some permitting the revealing of face and hands, others forbidding it. The Shafi‘is demand that a woman’s face and hands be covered in public, thus demanding some kind of veil over her face.
Both the Qur’an and hadith urge modesty in women’s dress and command them to cover themselves in public. The problem is a matter of interpretation of the original Arabic words used.
Most Sunni Muslims believe shari‘a to be completely unchangeable, although Shi’as allow for the possibility of interpreting and adapting it to new circumstances. Since the nineteenth century, there have been efforts at reforming shari’a in a liberal direction in order to accommodate it to the modern world, but in the contemporary Muslim world, the traditionalists and especially the Islamists — upholders of the traditional view of shari’a — are now dominating public opinion.
Of particular concern for Americans are cases where Muslim litigants seek — sometimes successfully — to have their cases in U.S. courts decided by principles of Sharia law. In 2015, the Center for Security Policy Press released a booklet titled Shariah in American Courts: The Expanding Incursion of Islamic Law in the U.S. Legal System. This publication documents 146 cases in 32 states in which a party to litigation attempted to have the matter resolved by applying shari’ah, rather than by the laws of the state in question.
Adapted mostly from “What Is Shari’a?” (published by the Barnabas Fund, January-February 2007).
A Short Course on Shariah and the Muslim Brotherhood
By the Center for Security Policy
April 2011
What Is Shari’a?
(see pullout section)
By Barnabas Fund
January-February 2007
What is Sharia?
By Dr. Hans Jansen
July 16, 2012
Sharia versus Freedom
Jamie Glazov interviews Andrew Bostom
October 19, 2012
Sharia for Dummies
By Nonie Darwish
August 27, 2010
No, Shari’ah Law Is Not Compatible With Western Values
By Forbes.com
October 6, 2016
Islam and The West Are Incompatible
By The American Thinker
May 24, 2018
EFFORTS TO SPREAD SHARIA TO THE WEST:
Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases
By The Center for Security Policy
June 21, 2011
Sharia Law in Britain
By One Law For All
June 2010
Sharia Law or “One Law For All”?
By Denis MacEoin David G. Green
2009
Shilling for Shariah
By David Meir-Levi
August 30, 2011
Sharia Law in Canada and Britain
By Eileen F. Toplansky
August 8, 2010
SHARIA IN U.S. MOSQUES:
Shari’a and Violence in American Mosques
By Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi
Summer 2011
Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques
By Freedom House
2005
American Mosques: Jihad’s Incubators
By Frank Gaffney
June 7, 2011
Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat
By Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt
2007
Muhammad Hisham Kabbani: “The Muslim Experience in America Is Unprecedented”
Middle East Quarterly
June 2000
Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security
An Open Forum at the U.S. Department of State
January 7, 1999
VIDEOS:
What Is Sharia
By Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer on Sharia
By Robert Spencer
BOOKS:
Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law
By Nonie Darwish
Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism
By Andrew Bostom
Shariah: The Threat To America
By the Center for Security Policy