[.eXe]

Okay so contrary to popular belief, this won't be a Sharia bashing thread. Just want you to turn your attention to some objective facts.

Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...#Religious_law

It lists all the countries in the world which have a religion based legal system.

Out of those 13 countries, 11 are based either entirely on Sharia or some mixture of Sharia and other codes. 1 is based on Christianity while the remaining one is based on English common law.

Now focus on the 11 that have some level of Sharia involvement. Look at the names of the countries and tell me, where do they stand on the global level in terms of wealth, conflict, corruption, poverty, human rights, secularism, etc.

You will find that of those 11 countries, 8 (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) are considered to essentially be bad countries to live in. Each country has its own reasons (Afghanistan has war/taliban, Saudi Arabia has sexism/strict penalties for stupid things/unfair legal system/corruption, countries in Africa have wars (mostly civil)/extreme poverty, large class disparities, illiteracy, etc and countries like Yemen are known to be the main areas where terrorists are trained/where their camps are/where Islamic indoctrination schools are, etc.

All of the above 8 countries has very high levels of disintegration inherently within them and they all just happen to also be governed either entirely or in part by the Sharia. Now I am not saying that these are the only countries with such issues. However, one cannot ignore the truth that in literally al countries where Sharia exists....it hasn't contributed at all to its or its peoples' development. If anything, all the countries with Sharia are imploding upon themselves, are seen as horrible places in terms of human rights, ethics, stability and literacy.

Now just looking at this from an objective standpoint...is a connection between Sharia and the status of these countries not evident?

I'm not assigning blame at this point, but just for a second...forget that you're muslim, jew or Christian. Just look at the state of these countries and their people.

Has Sharia failed in these regions? Has it been applied wrongly? Or is it just that inherently, Sharia law is not the way to go if you want societies to develop and progress.

[Perseveranze]

As usual, you try to begin the thread off with innocence as if you were some truth seeker, and then end up making clear inaccurate assertions, based on a few minutes of research; resulting from your own Islamaphobic bias.

1. An Islamic state does not exist.

2. No country today has instituted proper Shariah. Even Saudi try to mix their own constitution in, and many of the rulings are contradictory to Shariah.

Those who think that Saudi Arabia, and the mentioned countries are Islamic States are guilty or reductivism. They qualifications for an Islamic State are conceptual, institutional, procedural and legal. Implementing certain codes from Shariah does not amount to piety in this case, but hypocrisy.

3. Where they have instituted some Aspects of Shariah , you can see the benefit. For example;

Saudi's burglaries compared to other countries - http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...ime-burglaries

Saudi's rapes compared to other countries - http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap-crime-rapes

Saudi's murder rates (amongst the lowest 10) - http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top...der-rates.html

The crime rate in Saudi Arabia is very low compared to more industrialized countries. An analysis was done using INTERPOL data for Saudi Arabia. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI's index of crime. Index offenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Index used for trend calculation purposes. Saudi Arabia will be compared with Japan (country with a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2000 was 0.71 per 100,000 population for Saudi Arabia, 1.10 for Japan, and 5.51 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2000 was 0.14 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 1.78 for Japan and 32.05 for USA. For robbery, the rate in 2000 was 0.14 for Saudi Arabia, 4.08 for Japan, and 144.92 for USA. For aggravated assault, the rate in 2000 was 0.12 for Saudi Arabia, 23.78 for Japan, and 323.62 for USA. For burglary, the rate in 2000 was 0.05 for Saudi Arabia, 233.60 for Japan, and 728.42 for USA. The rate of larceny for 2000 was 79.71 for Saudi Arabia, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2475.27 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2000 was 76.25 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 414.17 for USA. The rate for all index offenses combined was 157.12 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4123.97 for USA.

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rw...di_arabia.html

"Crime in Saudi Arabia is relatively low when compared to some developed nations, but may be increasing due to higher levels of foreign workers and higher levels of unemployment among Saudi residents."
— John Wilson, on the crime situation in Saudi Arabia, in the book International Security and the United States: An Encyclopedi

Though I somewhat agree with the above (in terms of crime rising), I think last year Saudi had almost a 70% rise in the number of executions they carried out.
This is not Shariah to blame, but the corruption in implementing it. Saudi's corruption is something many can agree with.

4. Lol @ saying Iran can have Shariah.


5. Common sense, some of the Muslim countries that have banned things such as Alcohol, smoking, drugs etc. based on Shariah, have far less fatalities/problems/injuries caused by such things like you may find in countries that have it legalised.

6. Poverty also has nothing to do with Shariah. A Caliphate would never be living in a mansion or having "billion dollar banks across the globe" like Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak and so forth have.


I can go on.

Has Sharia failed in these regions? Has it been applied wrongly? Or is it just that inherently, Sharia law is not the way to go if you want societies to develop and progress.

It was under Shariah that civilization for the first time could actually thrive. History has proven this again and again (Al Andalus etc.), just like it has in the past, it can also do it today, if applied properly, with a Caliphate.

The ruin of the empire of the Romans, and, along with it the subversion of all law and order, which happened a few centuries afterwards, produced the entire neglect of that study of the connecting principles of nature, to which leisure and security can alone give occasion. After the fall of those great conquerors and the civilizers of mankind, the empire of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world enjoyed that degree of tranquility which the cultivation of the sciences requires. It was under the protection of those generous and magnificent princes, that the ancient philosophy and astronomy of the Greeks were restored and established in the East; that tranquility, which their mild, just and religious government diffused over their vast empire, revived the curiosity of mankind, to inquire into the connecting principles of nature. [The Essays of Adam Smith, London, 1869, P. 353.]

[.eXe]

I have made My views on islam quite blatant. Its no secret how i feel about sharia. But that doesnt mean i shouldn't or cant be objective.

[Wickersham]

Personally, I have a lot of problems with Sharia law and there are very little aspects of it that I like, but I really don't think that just cause a country imposes Sharia law and it seems like a bad place to live that it's necessarily because of their legal system. There could be any number of reasons why they're bad places to live in. Sure, there's a correlation between the two, but it doesn't mean that they're directly responsible for each other.

How do you know you can trust those statistics? I mean, I find it hard to trust the reliability and even the integrity of a Saudi source honestly ... and at least when it comes to rapes, in nearly all cases the victim doesn't speak up because they are afraid of persecution from the community and sometimes the law even (like in the Qatif rape).

[S'Class]

The answer is simple, no country has Sharia fully implemented. How the hell can you claim Afghanistan, Nigeria, Sudan and the rest have Sharia implemented?

[.eXe]

(Original post by S'Class)
The answer is simple, no country has Sharia fully implemented. How the hell can you claim Afghanistan, Nigeria, Sudan and the rest have Sharia implemented?

At which point did I say that those countries which you mentioned had 100% Sharia? If you even bother to click on the link I posted, you will see that in Afghanistan it says: Islamic law & American British Law after invasion, under Nigeria it says: Sharia in the northern states, under Sudan it says: Based on Islamic law.

But you won't do that...no it's much better to be ignorant of blatant facts, than to click a simple link and find out the answer on your own.

At no point did I suggest that any country has 100% Sharia.

However, are you telling me that the only way to judge Sharia is if a country 100% employs it? That's nonsense...you can look at a country that has partial Sharia for example and then analyse those areas which are affected by the law.

For example, in Saudi Arabia, marital law is under Sharia law. Therefore, we can evaluate the status of Saudi women who are blatantly discriminated against under Sharia, and come to very valid conclusions.

Where did this idea come from that a country can only be evaluated in terms of Sharia...if and only if, it is entirely under Sharia. That's bull**** buddy because there are no countries under 100% Sharia...so are you telling me Sharia can never be evaluated?

[S'Class]

(Original post by .eXe)
At which point did I say that those countries which you mentioned had 100% Sharia? If you even bother to click on the link I posted, you will see that in Afghanistan it says: Islamic law & American British Law after invasion, under Nigeria it says: Sharia in the northern states, under Sudan it says: Based on Islamic law.

But you won't do that...no it's much better to be ignorant of blatant facts, than to click a simple link and find out the answer on your own.

At no point did I suggest that any country has 100% Sharia.

However, are you telling me that the only way to judge Sharia is if a country 100% employs it? That's nonsense...you can look at a country that has partial Sharia for example and then analyse those areas which are affected by the law.

For example, in Saudi Arabia, marital law is under Sharia law. Therefore, we can evaluate the status of Saudi women who are blatantly discriminated against under Sharia, and come to very valid conclusions.

Where did this idea come from that a country can only be evaluated in terms of Sharia...if and only if, it is entirely under Sharia. That's bull**** buddy because there are no countries under 100% Sharia...so are you telling me Sharia can never be evaluated?

OK. Firstly Perseveranze gave some examples such as robbery and murder, where Sharia is implemented and showed that it has been hugely effective and made big differences.

Now let's look at another example. Afghanistan has low literacy rates, especially for women, therefore a bad society has been produced based on ignorance. If Sharia was implemented, these women would get an education.

[tazarooni89]

(Original post by .eXe)
You will find that of those 11 countries, 8 (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) are considered to essentially be bad countries to live in.

Considered bad countries to live in by whom?
Western society is extremely different to Islamic society. So if they're considered bad countries to live in by Western people, then I'm not surprised really. But ask an Arab whether he thinks Saudi Arabia or the UK is a better country to live in, and you might hear a different answer.

[praveena]

It's not Sharia law per say that is the problem, I personally think that the problem here is putting too much importance on religion.

[Iqbal007]

There hasn't been a proper implementation of Islamic law anywhere in the world.........to do so would mean that they would follow the entire Qu'ran and do so the way Prophet Muhammad pbuh did in Medina and Mecca. Yet we see such contradictions in laws and how everything is run in these so called 'Sharia law states'.

[.eXe]

(Original post by tazarooni89)
Considered bad countries to live in by whom?
Western society is extremely different to Islamic society. So if they're considered bad countries to live in by Western people, then I'm not surprised really. But ask an Arab whether he thinks Saudi Arabia or the UK is a better country to live in, and you might hear a different answer.

No bad countries in terms of qualitative factors, along with socioeconomic factors. Also, if there was one major thing that Western countries have that many Islamic countries don't to the same extent; it's freedom. Most of the arguments against Islamic countries use words like oppression, repression and force, which all indicate some or all loss of freedom.

How can the loss of freedom be considered better by some people?

I can understand that for some muslims, living near their holy sites, or living under some form of Sharia might be attractive factors however, as I said in the OP, forget that you're jew, christian or muslim and judge these countries only as a human being.

Are they still attractive anymore?

[tazarooni89]

(Original post by .eXe)
No bad countries in terms of qualitative factors, along with socioeconomic factors.

Yes but who chooses the factors by which we judge the "goodness" of a country? Saudi Arabia might be a worse country than the UK in terms of some factors, but a better country than the UK in terms of other factors. Deciding which factors carry the most weight is extremely subjective.

Which factors are you referring to, specifically?

Also, if there was one major thing that Western countries have that many Islamic countries don't to the same extent; it's freedom. Most of the arguments against Islamic countries use words like oppression, repression and force, which all indicate some or all loss of freedom.

How can the loss of freedom be considered better by some people?

No country has 100% freedom. Every country in the world has laws which ban you from doing some things, or restricting your freedom in some way. The loss of freedom can be considered better by some people because then others won't be free to commit acts which might contravene their idea of an ideal society. Anyone will agree that there are certain freedoms which people should not have. Though people might disagree on which freedoms are appropriate and which ones aren't.

A Saudi person might say that the UK causes a loss of freedom, because it prevents a man from marrying more than one woman, for example. Anybody can say that any country "lacks freedom", just by finding something which is illegal in that country but legal in their own.

I can understand that for some muslims, living near their holy sites, or living under some form of Sharia might be attractive factors however, as I said in the OP, forget that you're jew, christian or muslim and judge these countries only as a human being.

Are they still attractive anymore?

Well, I'm not going to judge these countries at all, because I don't think my judgement is relevant. I would be judging from my biased point of view of someone who has grown up and is very used to living in the UK. But had I grown up in Saudi Arabia, I'd probably prefer a different society.

My issue is that I'm not sure where you get the objectivity, to say that one country is unequivocally and objectively "worse" than another, without it coming down to personal preference.

[Alpharius]

OP, your asking the impossible of most people. They will always carry their cultural/religious bias, asking them to ignore them can be impossible.

As a Westerner, Sharia sounds abhorrant. If it was fully implemented, say goodbye to freedom of speech, anti-homosexuality, dhimmi tax (protection money), not to mention slavery being acceptable.

I know the muslim neg-gang will attack this, don't care, but none will argue with it. If they do, all I'll get is; "But Sharia specifies 5 ways to free slaves..." "...Christianity hates homosexuals too..." ext. None of which are good arguments.

Happy negging.

[Air_wolf]

(Original post by .eXe)
Lol so people feel comfortable just negging this, but not comfortable enough to put a post down.

If I had posted something inflammatory or against Sharia...all the muslims go wild...but the minute I post something sensible and objective...not a single muslim in sight.

At least Pers had the balls to post.

Loool sensible . Well least ur funny

[sonic23]

My tuppence worth:

Sharia is man-made, characterized as a discussion on the duties of Muslims based on the opinion of the Muslim community and unavoidably subjective interpretation of literature.

The Quran is Holy.

The Quran states in Surah Al-Baqarah that 'there is no compulsion in religion'.

:. Theocracy is a flawed model, subject to manipulations, interpretations and vested interests.

;'the only way we can ever change anything, is to look in the mirror and find no enemy' - Akala

With that said, original versions of the Sharia in prophet Muhammad's time happen to have similarities to the current UK Law. The point is that, ultimately, the law must be moral and provide justice. But, like any other law, Sharia is man-made as pointed out earlier, and so is going to be based on opinions; i.e. what is moral and what is justice.

Now depending on your views on Islam, you could point out that UK Law exhibits more Islamic qualities than Sharia, for example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[Wickersham]

(Original post by tazarooni89)
Considered bad countries to live in by whom?
Western society is extremely different to Islamic society. So if they're considered bad countries to live in by Western people, then I'm not surprised really. But ask an Arab whether he thinks Saudi Arabia or the UK is a better country to live in, and you might hear a different answer.

Err I'm Arabic and I think the UK is a much better country to live in than Saudi Arabia, and I doubt I'm in the minority. I'd only imagine that the really super religious would think the opposite. The only good side about living in this region is that it's far more luxurious and easy-going in terms of financial needs and benefits, but at the cost of losing many of the civil and social liberties that Westerners take for granted.

I think I'd much rather be living in squalor than be confined to a prison cell with gold chains, honestly ... Freedom is freedom no matter where you go. Comparatively speaking, the UK is much more free than Saudi Arabia and it baffles me how you try to argue otherwise. I'd put the blame on the culture of the region and people's mindsets though and not Sharia law.

[In2deep]

(Original post by .eXe)
At least Pers had the balls to post.

And I congratulate him but the majority of Muslims on TSR would have looked at title then the poster and not have even bothered to open this thread. It is fallacious to think that a lack of a reply means there is none and if you were really after a reply you would have searched the countless threads discussing this issue.

[Cattty]

i never get why anyone would want sheria law. human society evolves and betters itself, why would anyone want to live in the dark ages?
think of all the ignorance just a few hundred years ago- burn the witch, public hangings, stonings, etc.
why would ayone want to live like that when we have the freedom to say, think and do (to an extent) what we want.

the over-religious psychos who bleat on about the uk needing sheria law, need to go and live in somalia or yemen or another ott religious contry for a year then come back and see if they are grateful for what they can do here

[FrigidSymphony]

(Original post by .eXe)
Okay so contrary to popular belief, this won't be a Sharia bashing thread.

Really?

In any case, I'd like to point out that correlation does not equal causation. Although in this case it probably does, to a certain extent.

[zosolobos0]

(Original post by .eXe)
Okay so contrary to popular belief, this won't be a Sharia bashing thread. Just want you to turn your attention to some objective facts.

Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...#Religious_law

It lists all the countries in the world which have a religion based legal system.

Out of those 13 countries, 11 are based either entirely on Sharia or some mixture of Sharia and other codes. 1 is based on Christianity while the remaining one is based on English common law.

Now focus on the 11 that have some level of Sharia involvement. Look at the names of the countries and tell me, where do they stand on the global level in terms of wealth, conflict, corruption, poverty, human rights, secularism, etc.

You will find that of those 11 countries, 8 (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) are considered to essentially be bad countries to live in. Each country has its own reasons (Afghanistan has war/taliban, Saudi Arabia has sexism/strict penalties for stupid things/unfair legal system/corruption, countries in Africa have wars (mostly civil)/extreme poverty, large class disparities, illiteracy, etc and countries like Yemen are known to be the main areas where terrorists are trained/where their camps are/where Islamic indoctrination schools are, etc.

All of the above 8 countries has very high levels of disintegration inherently within them and they all just happen to also be governed either entirely or in part by the Sharia. Now I am not saying that these are the only countries with such issues. However, one cannot ignore the truth that in literally al countries where Sharia exists....it hasn't contributed at all to its or its peoples' development. If anything, all the countries with Sharia are imploding upon themselves, are seen as horrible places in terms of human rights, ethics, stability and literacy.

Now just looking at this from an objective standpoint...is a connection between Sharia and the status of these countries not evident?

I'm not assigning blame at this point, but just for a second...forget that you're muslim, jew or Christian. Just look at the state of these countries and their people.

Has Sharia failed in these regions? Has it been applied wrongly? Or is it just that inherently, Sharia law is not the way to go if you want societies to develop and progress.

google/wiki:

ibn khaldun

intisar rabb

rwandan history and legal system

Indonesian history and legal system

venezuelan history and legal system

Modern and ancient history of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Ethiopia and papers by scholars of all kinds of socipolitical affiliation past and present.

read.

book a flight to those places.

Ask the civilians from all walks of life in those places

decide the answer to your question.