What does the Shariah Law actually state? here are some examples of Shariah Law.

 

In a step toward total governance under Shariah Law, most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance. Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of jurisprudence, and religious police assert social compliance. Laws derived from sharia are also applied in Afghanistan, Libya and Sudan. Some states in northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia courts.  In practice the new Sharia courts in Nigeria have most often meant the re-introduction of harsh punishments without respecting the much tougher rules of evidence and testimony. The punishments include amputation of one/both hands for theft, stoning for adultery and apostasy.  Though Islamic law is interpreted differently across times, places and scholars, most Muslim fundamentalists following the literal and traditional interpretations believe it should legally be binding on all people of the Muslim faith and even on all people who come under their control. 

 

This is the position of Muslim fundamentalists today.

 

There are four schools of Islamic Sacred law; Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali, but on the following 25 points, there is no disagreement

 

1. Offensive, military jihad against non-Muslims is a communal, religious obligation - It is personally obligatory for everyone.  The objectives of the caliph is to make war on Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice.  If they will not, to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya).

 

2. A person who is ignorant about Islamic legal opinion must follow the legal opinion of a scholar (Muslim)

 

 

3. The penalty for a Muslim apostate (someone who no longer believes in or no longer follows the tenets of Islam) is death. There is no penalty for killing an apostate since it is killing someone who deserves to die.

 

4. When slaughtering animals for food, a knife must be used to cut the windpipe and gullet.

 

5. A woman is only eligible to receive half the inheritance of a man.

 

6. Marriage may be forced on virgins by their father or father's father.

 

7. A non-Arab man may not marry an Arab woman.

 

8. A woman must seek permission from her husband to leave the house.  The husband may forbid his wife to leave the home. "It is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to allow someone into her husband's house if he is opposed, or to go out if he is averse".  But if one of her relatives dies, it is preferable to let her leave to visit them.

 

9. A Muslim man cannot marry a woman who is a Zoroastrian, an idol worshipper, an apostate from Islam or a woman with one parent who is Jewish or Christian, with the other being Zoroastrian; a Muslim woman cannot marry anyone but a Muslim;

 

10. A free Muslim man may marry up to four women.  It is unlawful for a free man to marry more than four women.

 

11. Retaliation is obligatory in most cases when someone is deliberately murdered except when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, a Jew or a Christian kills a Muslim apostate or a father or mother kill their offspring.  The following are not subject to retaliation: a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim; a Jewish or Christian subject of the Islamic state for killing an apostate from Islam; a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring;

 

12. Non-Muslim subjects (Ahl al-Dhimma) of a Muslim state are subject to a series of discriminatory laws - "dhimmitude";  Non-Muslim subjects are:

 

(1) Jews;

(2) Christians;

(3) Zoroastrians;

(4) Samarians and Sabians, if their religions do not respectively contradict the fundamental bases of Judaism and Christianity;

(5) and those who adhere to the religion of Abraham or one of the other prophets (upon whom be blessings and peace).

 

(a) follow the rules of Islam (A: those mentioned below (o11.5) and those involving public behavior and dress, though in acts of worship and their private lives, the subject communities have their own laws, judges, and courts, enforcing the rules of their own religion among themselves);

 

(1) are penalized for committing adultery or theft, though not for drunkenness;

 

(2) are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar);

 

(3) are not greeted with "as-Salamu alaykum";

 

(4) must keep to the side of the street;

 

(5) may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims' buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed;

 

(6) are forbidden to openly display wine or pork, (A: to ring church bells or display crosses,) recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays;

 

(7) and are forbidden to build new churches.

(b) and pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya).  It is collected with leniency and politeness, as are all debts, and is not levied on women, children, or the insane.

 

13. The penalty for fornication or sodomy is being stoned to death;

 

14. The penalty for an initial theft is amputation of the right hand, whether he is a Muslim, non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state. Subsequent thefts are penalized by further amputations of feet and hand;  If a person steals a second time, his left foot is amputated; if a third time, then his left hand; and if he steals again, then his right foot. If he steals a fifth time, he is disciplined (def: o17). If he does not have a right hand (N: at the first offense), then his left foot is amputated. If he has a right hand but loses it after the theft (O: by an act of God) but before he has been punished for it, then nothing is amputated. After amputation, the limb is cauterized with hot oil (A: which in previous times was the means to stop the bleeding and save the criminal's life).

 

15. A non-Muslim cannot testify against a Muslim in court; a person who is "without respectability" cannot give legal testimony; a woman's legal testimony is only given half the legal weight of a man's (and is only acceptable in cases involving property); to legally prove fornication or sodomy requires 4 male witnesses who actually saw the act;

 

16. The establishment and continuation of the Islamic Caliphate (by force, if necessary) is a communal obligation;

 

17. Sodomites and Lesbians must be killed;

 

18. Laughing too much is forbidden;

 

19. Musical instruments are unlawful;

 

20. Creating pictures of animate life is forbidden;

 

21. Female circumcision, which includes the excision of the clitoris, is obligatory;  In application, in Egypt this is more than 90% applied - in other Muslim countries less so.  This is social co-ersion of the most primitive, heinous sort.

 

22. Slavery is permitted;  The 57 State Muslim council OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference] dominates the Human Rights Council of the UN.  Slavery may not be mentioned, instead the word 'abduction' is used.

 

23. People may be bribed to convert to Islam;

 

24. Beating a rebellious wife is permissible; and,

 

25. Lying is permissible in a time of war (or jihad). settling disagreements, and a man talking with his wife or she with him (A: in smoothing over differences)."  or gaining the sympathy of a victim legally entitled to retaliate against one so that he will forbear to do so; it is not unlawful to lie when any of these aims can only be attained through lying. But it is religiously more precautionary in all such cases to employ words that give a misleading impression, meaning to intend by one's words something that is literally true, in respect to which one is not lying, while the outward purport of the words deceives the hearer, though even if one does not have such an intention and merely lies without intending anything else, it is not unlawful in the above circumstances."