Were Muslim Christian marriages even possible, given the strictures of Sharia law.

Over 90 per cent of women were governed by either customary law or sharia law, both of which permitted polygamy.

Those married under Muslim law, for instance, which covered 90 per cent of all marriages, were governed by sharia law.

Mr. Taal (Gambia) stressed that sharia law applied only to family matters in the Gambia.

Under sharia law and customary law women did not have the same rights as men with regard to divorce or inheritance.

Ms. Al Saleh (Oman) said that Omani women enjoyed a wide range of civil and political freedoms founded on Islamic sharia law and civil law.

No public execution had taken place in Nigeria since 1999, and stoning was no longer practised even though Sharia law still prevailed in some regions.

Moreover, if women studied sharia law and the Koran, they could decide for themselves what those texts dictated and would not be misled by others.

Given the fact that 90 per cent of Gambians were Muslims who were guided primarily by customary and sharia law, it was difficult to convince them that certain traditional practices were harmful and discriminatory towards women and, while Islam itself was not an excuse for failure to adhere to the Convention, sharia and customary law often went hand in hand.

Customary law in Afghanistan varies widely by region but significant procedural and conceptual similarities exist throughout the country, particularly the reliance on respected community members, who are trained neither in national law nor in sharia.

Islamic financial instruments can comply with sharia Islam s moral code and religious law as well as send signals of change compatible with recent developments in several Muslim majority countries.

Experts in Hebrew culture explained that Judaism and Norway s constitution were irreconcilable. Mosaic law was, so the experts said, the only constitution recognized by Jews, and so it should be feared, in the way modern critics of Islam fear Sharia law.

(o) The overbroad discretionary powers of the sharia court judges in the application of personal status law and criminal law and, in particular, reported failures to take into account clear evidence of violence confirmed in medical certificates following violence against women

In Europe, Islam is the fastest growing religion, and Sharia has penetrated European legal systems. In the UK, a hundred Sharia courts adjudicate on divorce and other family cases, prompting Home Secretary Theresa May to promise a review of Sharia courts to determine whether they are consistent with British values.

They share anti Israel sentiment, and support Hamas against the secular nationalist Fatah in the Palestinians internecine struggle. Committed to governance under Sharia (Islamic law), they both view Western culture as a threat.

The latest output from this initiative is a compilation of inter country studies analyzing how legislative reform to harmonize laws with the Convention on the Rights of the Child has progressed in the four legal traditions (civil law, common law and countries with mixed legal traditions with Sharia and or customary law systems).

160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 Islamic financial instruments can comply with sharia Islam s moral code and religious law as well as send signals of change compatible with recent developments in several Muslim majority countries.

On the contrary, the various forms of law in the Gambia denied women equal rights with respect to marriage, divorce and inheritance for example, under sharia law the testimony of one man was equal to that of two women before the cadi courts, while under customary law a widow could be considered part of her husband's estate.

But the task of finding, appointing, and accepting independent judges remains. It will be particularly difficult in an environment in which the sharia that is, Islamic religious law administered not by judges but by priests is never far away.

Likewise, the sharia , Islamic law, entered political life in its least enlightened version in hopeful democracies like Nigeria, to say nothing of Iran. Islamic fundamentalism Islamism has spread to all countries in which there are significant numbers of Muslims.

And it is also significant that the first protests in Istanbul s Taksim Square concerned not a mosque, but a shopping mall. Fear of sharia law is matched by anger at the rapacious vulgarity of developers and entrepreneurs backed by Erdoğan s government.

But 42 of these women are members of Ennahda, which regards Sharia (Islamic law) as the source of legislation. Long time Tunisian activists fear that Ennahda, which dominates the assembly, will use the presence of women MPs to restrict women s rights.

The right of every child to wear clothes compatible with her beliefs , while complying with Islamic Sharia, public etiquette, and modesty.

The Government could not tackle those issues alone. Nor should such matters be governed by the sharia or left to popular tradition.

Truly! This, your Ummah Sharia or religion (Islamic Monotheism) is one religion, and I am your Lord, therefore worship Me (Alone). Tafsir Ibn Kathir

Truly! This, your Ummah Sharia or religion (Islamic Monotheism) is one religion, and I am your Lord, therefore worship Me (Alone). Tafsir Ibn Kathir

Draft legislation that reflects a restrictive interpretation of sharia (Islamic law), particularly concerning women s status, is now being submitted for debate in Tunisia. And there seems to be a clear intention in many Arab countries to allow unrestricted polygamy, for example, even where it was prohibited prior to the Arab Spring.

Likewise, regime change in Libya aided the rise of Al Qaeda linked militants, leading to the killing in Benghazi of the US ambassador. A system based on sharia (Islamic law) has been imposed, human rights abuses are legion, and cross border movement of weapons and militants has undermined the security of Libya s neighbors.

The Niger has borders with Algeria a country affected by violent armed Islamic fundamentalists who continue to claim victims to the north Nigeria where several federal states have unilaterally adopted Sharia law as their state law  to the south Chad the northern region of which is in the grips of an armed rebellion to the east and Mali whose eastern region is in constant turmoil to the west.

Despite efforts at secularization, the gap between Muslim and Western outlooks has, if anything, grown in recent years, as religion has regained ascendancy in most Muslim countries. Sharia religious law extreme versions of which hold that conduct decriminalized in the West, such as adultery and homosexuality, is punishable by death influences their legal codes.

Boko Haram, whose primary objective is to compel Nigeria to adopt Sharia law, has proved surprisingly resilient since declaring war on the government in 2009, in response to the military s execution of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf. Using hit and run guerilla tactics and suicide bombers, Boko Haram has attacked police stations, government buildings, and churches, killing thousands.

Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notes that Morsi s previous role in the Muslim Brotherhood s Guidance Council sheds some light on the motives behind his current behavior. In the past, Morsi advocated a platform that excluded Christians from political life and granted Islamic scholars oversight authority to ensure that all legislation complied with Sharia law.

Bashir will also no doubt try to stop the oil rich devolved region of South Sudan from declaring independence. The people of South Sudan, most of whom are Christian or animists, are likely to favor secession not least because of the memory of decades of war and the deeply resented imposition of Sharia law by Bashir s government in Khartoum.

Hassan Dahir Aweys had travelled to that central Somalia location to establish sharia courts and to provide military training to his militia (Al Itihad) or set up military training programmes.

Ms. Jouhargy (Saudi Arabia) said that Saudi women enjoyed all their rights under the Islamic sharia, inlcluding the right to own and dispose of property and to receive an education.

Although the delegation had maintained that the sharia applied only to family matters, equality began in the home and what happened in the family conditioned the situation of women in society.

That began to change in 2001, when Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the assassinated military strongman General Zia, replaced secularism in the Constitution with the Sovereignty of Allah. Encouraged by this change the BNP s junior coalition partner, Jamaat e Islami, which has links with the militias and remains close to Pakistan, has been calling for imposition of Sharia (Islamic law).

As a result, support for sharia declined and national identity soared. Insofar as political discourse is focused on national rebuilding and freedom, Islamic fundamentalists, in Egypt and elsewhere, will face an uphill battle.

That agenda is Islam, which many imagine to include all the terrible things that we can read about in the press every day the stoning of adulterous women under Sharia law in northern Nigeria, the amputation of thieves hands in Saudi Arabia, honor killings of women who refuse arranged marriages in Pakistan (or even northern English cities like Bradford and Manchester), the willingness to justify suicide bombings.

Around 40 of Pakistanis live below the poverty line, half the population is illiterate, and, among those who are literate, many have been schooled in Wahhabi funded madrasas. Various opinion polls consistently show that a sizable minority of Pakistanis has a favorable view of Osama bin Laden, an unfavorable view of the US, and believe that implementing Islamic law (Sharia) should be a priority.

Fourth, laws are often arbitrarily applied, and sharia (Islamic law) frequently takes precedence over civil legislation, resulting in widespread impunity for crimes of violence against women. For example, in October 2010, the Afghan Supreme Court ruled that women who run away from home can be charged with prostitution, unless they go to the police or an immediate relative's home. 160 It is this mindset that led to Gul s victimization.

Fourth, laws are often arbitrarily applied, and sharia (Islamic law) frequently takes precedence over civil legislation, resulting in widespread impunity for crimes of violence against women. For example, in October 2010, the Afghan Supreme Court ruled that women who run away from home can be charged with prostitution, unless they go to the police or an immediate relative's home. It is this mindset that led to Gul s victimization.

Meanwhile, America s support for the regimes in Yemen and Saudi Arabia has contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In parts of southern Yemen, an Al Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al Sharia, functions as a de facto government.

For some time now, however, a good many of them, through a spillover effect, have begun to make political demands (establishment of Sharia laws and proclamation of an Islamic Republic) often accompanied by a rhetoric of violence and acts of vandalism.

Clearly, many Turkish citizens, especially in the big cities, are sick of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan s increasingly authoritarian style, his steely grip on the press, his taste for grandiose new mosques, the restrictions on alcohol, the arrests of political dissidents, and now the violent response to the demonstrations. People fear that sharia law will replace secular legislation, and that Islamism will spoil the fruits of Kemal Atatürk s drive to modernize post Ottoman Turkey.