Why is Sharia mentioned in the same breath as public executions?
Of all the issues around Islamic law, this remains the most controversial in Western eyes – and its presentation the most infuriating for Muslims. Muslims say the Western world misrepresents Sharia by focusing on beheadings in Saudi Arabia and other gruesome punishments. The equivalent, they say, would be a debate about the history of Western law focused on America’s electric chair. Some modern Muslim scholars say that while Sharia includes provisions for capital and corporal punishment, getting to that stage is in fact quite difficult. The most famous Muslim thinker in Europe, Tariq Ramadan, has called for a moratorium on these penalties in the Muslim world. He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today’s world. But Muslims can be executed for converting? Apostasy, or leaving the faith, is a very controversial issue in the Muslim world and the consensus of scholars believe it is punishable by death. But a minorit
