An extensive survey of Muslims, conducted in 39 countries throughout the world and published on April 30, revealed a broad desire for the implementation of shari’a law.
Those questioned also expressed a high level of support for the freedom of non-Muslims to practise their faith, which is granted by shari’a to Christians and Jews on condition that they submit to demeaning and discriminatory dhimmi regulations.
For the study The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, the US-based Pew Forum interviewed 38,000 Muslims on matters relating to the application of shari’a, democracy and morality.
In countries across South Asia, South-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region, most Muslims favour making shari’a their country’s official shari’a legal code. Afghanistan, where is already effectively the law of the land, had the highest level of support at 99%, while several countries, including Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Niger, had over 80%.
There was less consensus over which aspects of shari’a should be applied. There was strong support for its role in family matters, with generally lower but considerable percentages backing severe shari’a penalties such as cutting off the hands of thieves.
Death penalty
Among those who say shari’a should be the law of the land, there was a high level of support in some places for the stoning to death of adulterers, chiefly in Pakistan (89%), Afghanistan (85%), the Palestinian territories (84%) and Egypt (81%).
The strong backing in parts of South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa for the death penalty for those who leave Islam is of grave concern. Egypt had the highest percentage, at 86%, among Muslims who had said that shari’a should be the law of the land.
It would have been interesting to see an analysis of responses by gender. Shari’a law discriminates strongly against women, but gives men a number of major advantages. It would also have been interesting to know whether Muslim men and women supported it in equal numbers and how privately the questions were asked. In many contexts, to speak against shari’a is to invite violent reprisal from Islamists. It is possible that the people surveyed responded according to how they felt they should answer as devout Muslims.
A significant flaw in this study is that it did not ask Muslims from a number of key countries where shari’a is actually enforced, such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia and Iran, how they feel about living under it. Many Iranian Muslims are turning to Christ, a process which often begins with them rejecting Islam because they have experienced the oppression shari’a of Islamic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in their country.
