What is it then that you mean by Sharia?
An-Na’im: The Sharia appears in the Koran in the sense that believers look at the sources of their faith in order to find guidance. The Sharia is not a law. The state cannot decide to make a family law out of it. It would then no longer be the Sharia, but rather the political will of the state. But the Sharia does, nevertheless, affect the justice system. Take the case of the law of succession, for example, where women in Muslim countries, as in many others, do not have equality. All that is only a legitimising discourse for the existing power relations. If you look at the Islamic world then you see that there is an enormous difference in the interpretation of individual points. It is always, in the final analysis, the political will to get something done that is decisive. Islam, Marxism or nationalism can all be made to work for one’s own cause.
