What is Sharia law? Meaning of the term and the countries where it’s in place
SHARIA law is Islam's legal system - but it's not 'law' as in the West.
It instead acts as a set of religious principles which aim to help Muslims understand how to lead their daily lives as part of Islamic tradition.
What is Sharia law?
Sharia law is the legal system of Islam and was derived from the Qur'an or Koran - the central religious text of Islam - and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.
The Arabic word Sharia originally meant "way" or "path" and refers to the revealed law of God.
It informs every aspect of the daily life of a Muslim, covering much more than Western laws do, and it doesn't necessarily refer to "law" in the usual sense.
There are two main branches of Sharia - ibadat, which means rituals or acts of worship, and mu'amalat, meaning human interactions and social relations.
These break down into smaller branches which include things like finances, marriage, diet, prayers, fasting and pilgrimage.
All actions are put into five distinct categories - obligatory, recommended, permitted, discouraged, and forbidden.
And crimes fall into three categories - tazir (the least serious and at the discretion of a judge), qisas (the offender is subjected to the exact same affliction as the victim), and hudud (the most severe and considered against God).
Where is Sharia law enforced?
The way Sharia law is interpreted in different countries varies dramatically, and it largely depends on the government in charge.
But it is enforced in the following countries:
- Afghanistan
- Bahrain
- Brunei
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Kuwait
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mauritania
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- United Arab Emirates
- Yemen
Sudan ended its use of Sharia law in September 2020 when it ended 30 years of Islamic law and became a secular state.
Some countries, like Palestine, Lebanon, Israel, and Bangladesh, use Sharia law for Muslim citizens and/or specific family matters including marriage, divorce and inheritance.
What are the punishments in Sharia law?
Offences are divided into general categories in Sharia law.
Serious crimes, or "hadd" offences, have set penalties - for example, theft is punishable by amputating the perpetrator's hand, while adultery can carry the penalty of being stoned to death.
Not all Muslim countries adopt or enforce such punishments and reports suggest the attitudes of Muslims towards harsh penalties vary widely for hadd offences.
An Indonesian woman who had sex outside of marriage was punished by being whipped 100 times in a public lashing carried out by a man wearing a mask and brown robes.
Sharia law is used in some countries as a reason to retain capital punishment.
Lesser crimes, known as "tazir";, are left to the discretion of a judge to be dealt with.
Leaving the faith - or Apostasy - is a controversial issue and experts say the majority of scholars believe it is punishable by death.
But a minority of Muslim thinkers claim that "punishment" should be left to God, and the Koran itself declares there is "no compulsion" in religion.
What does a return to strict Sharia law in Afghanistan mean for women?
The Taliban has returned to power in Afghanistan, bringing an extreme interpretation of Sharia law.
The group during their rule in the 1990s, and their return has sparked fears this will be even worse for women and girls now.
Taliban leader Zabihullah Mujahid declared their victory as a "proud moment for the nation" and vowed to impose Sharia law on Afghanistan.
While Sharia simply refers to laws that are derived from Islam, the Taliban have an extreme interpretation of what this means in practice.
They have forbidden women from leaving the house alone without an adult male relative and have banned them from working or being educated.
Militants are also reportedly targeting children as young as 12 as sex slaves, and pictures of women in shop fronts in Kabul have been painted over by terrified shopkeepers.
One Kabul resident said her university was being evacuated because the Taliban were beating women without a burqa, according to the .
Video captured earlier in 2021 showed an unnamed woman screaming as she was whipped by a Taliban fighter accused of talking to a man on the phone.
And it follows the beheading of a woman who went shopping on her own in 2016, and another who was stoned to death in a shallow grave for having sex with her boyfriend.
The Taliban has vowed to respect women's rights, but there are still widespread fears among women and girls in the country and around the world.
Sophie Walker, founder of the Women's Equality Party, told Sky News: "It's very, very clear that women's rights are being washed away.
"The women have disappeared from public life and that is really, really worrying."
