Muslim Views and Interpretations of Sharia | Middle East And North Africa

SURVEYS ON SHARIA

A 2007 Gallup survey of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominately Muslim countries, found there is widespread support Sharia but only a small minority want religious leader to make the laws. Most the Muslim women surveyed said they believed Sharia should be a source of national laws, but also strongly believed in equal rights for women.

According to Pew Research Center: Overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (sharia) to be the official law of the land But many supporters of sharia say it should apply only to their country’s Muslim population. Moreover, Muslims are not equally comfortable with all aspects of sharia: While most favor using religious law in family and property disputes, fewer support the application of severe punishments — such as whippings or cutting off hands — in criminal cases. The survey also shows that Muslims differ widely in how they interpret certain aspects of sharia, including whether divorce and family planning are morally acceptable. [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

The survey involved a total of more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 80-plus languages. It covered Muslims in 39 countries, which are divided into six regions in this report — Southern and Eastern Europe (Russia and the Balkans), Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. The surveys that are the basis for this report were conducted across multiple years. Fifteen sub-Saharan countries with substantial Muslim populations were surveyed in 2008-2009 as part of a larger project that examined religion in that region. The methods employed in those countries — as well as some of the findings — are detailed in the Pew Research Center’s 2010 report “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” An additional 24 countries and territories were surveyed in 2011-2012.

In 21 of these countries, Muslims make up a majority of the population. In these cases, nationally representative samples of at least 1,000 respondents were fielded. The number of self-identified Muslims interviewed in these countries ranged from 551 in Lebanon to 1,918 in Bangladesh. In Russia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Muslims are a minority, oversamples were employed to ensure adequate representation of Muslims; in both cases, at least 1,000 Muslims were interviewed. Meanwhile, in Thailand, the survey was limited to the country’s five southern provinces, each with substantial Muslim populations; more than 1,000 interviews with Muslims were conducted across these provinces.

Websites on Sharia: Sharia by Knut S. Vikør, Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics web.archive.org ; Encyclopædia Britannica britannica.com ; Four Sunni Schools of Thought masud.co.uk ; Law by Norman Calder, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World web.archive.org ; Sharia Law in the International Legal Sphere – Yale University web.archive.org ; 'Recognizing Sharia' in Britain, anthropologist John R. Bowen discusses Britain's sharia courts bostonreview.net ; "The Reward of the Omnipotent" late 19th Arabic manuscript about Sharia wdl.org

Regional Differences in Views on Sharia

According to Pew Research Center: Attitudes toward Islamic law vary significantly by region. Support for making sharia the law of the land is highest in South Asia (median of 84 percent). Medians of at least six-in-ten Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa (64 percent), the Middle East-North Africa region (74 percent) and Southeast Asia (77 percent) also favor enshrining sharia as official law. But in two regions, far fewer Muslims say Islamic law should be endorsed by their governments: Southern and Eastern Europe (18 percent) and Central Asia (12 percent). [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

Within regions, support for enshrining sharia as official law is particularly high in some countries with predominantly Muslim populations, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But support for sharia is not limited to countries where Muslims make up a majority of the population. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, Muslims constitute less than a fifth of the population in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique and Uganda; yet in each of these countries, at least half of Muslims (52 percent-74 percent) say they want sharia to be the official law of the land.

Conversely, in some countries where Muslims make up more than 90 percent of the population, relatively few want their government to codify Islamic law; this is the case in Tajikistan (27 percent), Turkey (12 percent) and Azerbaijan (8 percent).

Distinct legal and political cultures may help to explain the differing levels of support for sharia. Many of the countries surveyed in Central Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe share a history of separating religion and the state. The policies of modern Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, for example, emphasized the creation of a secular government; other countries in these two regions experienced decades of secularization under communist rule. By contrast, governments in many of the countries surveyed in South Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region have officially embraced Islam.

Interpretations of Sharia

“Professor Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, told USA TODAY that sharia “is defined very clearly by the Qur’an,” but interpretation of the text from scholars, governments and cultures have drastically differed. “You have over the centuries, very established Islamic scholars, some with one bent, some with another,” Ahmed said. “For example, the Shia Muslim scholars may have a slightly different interpretation of the same thing. Scholars in Indonesia, further to the east, may have a slightly different interpretation. ““All these are adjusted in the context of the culture,” he said. “William Granara, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, told USA TODAY that "to think that there's one sharia is really problematic.In the hands of the Taliban, obviously it's very different from the way that, you know, Moroccans or Indonesians may read or apply sharia." [Source: Marina Pitofsky, USA TODAY, August 20, 2021]

According to the “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”: The diverse geographic, social, historical, and cultural contexts in which jurists have written also account for differences in Islamic law. Many ulama, representing conservative strains in Islam, continue to equate God's divinely revealed law (Sharia) with legal manuals developed by early law schools. Reformers, however, call for changes in laws that are the products of social custom and human reasoning, saying that duties and obligations to God (worship) are unchanging but that social obligations to one's fellow man reflect changing circumstances. They reclaim the right of ijtihad (independent reasoning) to reinterpret Islam to meet modern social needs. [Source: John L. Esposito “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

Mark Fathi Massoud wrote: “Religion is woven into the legal fabric of many post-colonial nations, with varying consequences for democracy and stability. After its 1948 founding, Israel debated the role of Jewish law in Israeli society. Ultimately, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his allies opted for a mixed legal system that combined Jewish law with English common law. In Latin America, the Catholicism imposed by Spanish conquistadors underpins laws restricting abortion, divorce and gay rights. And throughout the 19th century, judges in the U.S. regularly invoked the legal maxim that “Christianity is part of the common law.” Legislators still routinely invoke their Christian faith when supporting or opposing a given law. Political extremism and human rights abuses that occur in those places are rarely understood as inherent flaws of these religions. [Source: Mark Fathi Massoud, Director of Legal Studies and Associate Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz, The Conversation, December 31, 2020]

“When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, however, Sharia takes the blame for regressive laws — not the people who pass those policies in the name of religion. Fundamentalism and violence, in other words, are a post-colonial problem — not a religious inevitability. For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule. But building peace may demand it.

Harsh Interpretations of Sharia

According to The Conversation: “The way Sharia is interpreted depends on who is using it and why. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei have interpreted Sharia harshly. In 2019, Brunei introduced death by stoning for homosexuals under its Islamic law. International pressure later forced the country to back down. Sharia has been used to restrict women’s freedom in Saudi Arabia. However, scholar Mark Fathi Massoud points out that Sharia provided women with rights that were unheard of in the premodern world. [Source: The Conversation, August 31, 2021]

Scholar Jessica Marglin connects this harsh interpretation to “Islamism,” which arose in the 20th century. “Islamists see revival of the Sharia as a political solution to the problems plaguing Muslim-majority societies, including corruption and inequality,” writes Marglin.

“It’s important to understand what led to these modern-day interpretations in a few countries like Saudi Arabia and Brunei. Massoud says that it was countries in which Muslim fundamentalists have gained power, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, among others, that “stunted the democratic potential of Sharia.”

“During the colonial era, Great Britain, France and other European powers ruled over their colonies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Massoud’s research shows that post-colonial Muslim societies, such as Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, rejected the religious system and embraced the colonial legal system, leaving Sharia in the hands of extremists.

Places That Want Sharia as the Law of the Land

According to Pew Research Center: Indeed, the survey finds that support for making sharia the law of the land is often higher in countries where the constitution or basic laws already favor Islam over other religions. Majorities in such countries say sharia should be enshrined as official law, including at least nine-in-ten Muslims in Afghanistan (99 percent) and Iraq (91 percent). By comparison, in countries where Islam is not legally favored, roughly a third or fewer Muslims say sharia should be the law of the land. Support is especially low in Kazakhstan (10 percent) and Azerbaijan (8 percent). [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

The survey also finds that views about instituting sharia in the domestic-civil sphere frequently mirror a country’s existing legal system. Asked whether religious judges should decide family and property disputes, at least half of Muslims living in countries that have religious family courts answer yes. By contrast, in countries where secular courts oversee family matters, fewer than half of Muslims think that family and property disputes should be within the purview of religious judges.

When comparing Muslim attitudes toward sharia as official law and its specific application in the domestic sphere, three countries are particularly instructive: Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey. In Lebanon, Islam is not the favored religion of the state, but the major Muslim sects in the country operate their own courts overseeing family law. Attitudes of Lebanese Muslims appear to mirror this political and legal structure: While roughly three-in-ten (29 percent) say sharia should be the official law of the land, about half (53 percent) say religious judges should have the power to decide family and property disputes.

Tunisia’s legal framework is, in key respects, the opposite of Lebanon’s: The Tunisian Constitution favors Islam over other religions, but religious courts, which once governed family law, were abolished in 1956. Perhaps reflecting this history, more than half of Tunisian Muslims (56 percent) want sharia to be the official law of the land, but a minority (42 percent) says religious courts should oversee family and property law.

Turkey’s evolution in the early 20th century included sweeping legal reforms resulting in a secular constitution and legal framework. As part of these changes, traditional sharia courts were eliminated in the 1920s. Today, only minorities of Turkish Muslims back enshrining sharia as official law (12 percent) or letting religious judges decide family and property disputes (14 percent).

Support for Sharia Based on Age, Gender, Religiosity and Education

According to Pew Research Center: Across the countries surveyed, support for making sharia the official law of the land generally varies little by age, gender or education. In the few countries where support for Islamic law varies significantly by age, older Muslims tend to favor enshrining sharia as the law of the land more than younger Muslims do. This is particularly true in the Middle East-North Africa region, where Muslims ages 35 and older are more likely than those 18-34 to back sharia in Lebanon (+22 percentage points), Jordan (+12), Tunisia (+12) and the Palestinian territories (+10). [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

In only two countries are men significantly more likely than women to favor enshrining sharia as official law: Pakistan (+16 percentage points) and Russia (+9). In most countries, Muslims with a secondary degree or higher (i.e., graduates of a high school, technical institute or college) are about as likely as those with less education to support Islamic law.

According to Pew Research Center: The survey finds that religious devotion also shapes attitudes toward sharia.8 In many countries, Muslims with higher levels of religious commitment are more likely to support sharia. In Russia, for example, Muslims who say they pray several times a day are 37 percentage points more likely to support making sharia official law than Muslims who say they pray less frequently. Similarly, in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Tunisia, Muslims who say they pray several times a day are at least 25 percentage points more supportive of enshrining sharia as official law than are less observant Muslims. [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

Muslims Who Favor Making Sharia Official Law

According to Pew Research Center: When Muslims around the world say they want sharia to be the law of the land, what role do they envision for religious law in their country? First, many, but by no means all, supporters of sharia believe the law of Islam should apply only to Muslims. In addition, those who favor Islamic law tend to be most comfortable with its application to questions of family and property. In some regions, fewer back the imposition of severe punishments in criminal cases, such as cutting off the hands of thieves — an area of sharia known in Arabic as hudud. But in South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, medians of more than half back both severe criminal punishments and the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their faith. [Source: Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013]

Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land generally agree that the requirements of Islam should apply only to Muslims. Across the regions where the question was asked, medians of at least 51 percent say sharia should apply exclusively to adherents of the Muslim faith. This view is prevalent even in regions such as South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, where there is overwhelming support for enshrining sharia as the official law of the land. (See chart in Should Sharia Apply to All Citizens? in Chapter 1: Beliefs About Sharia.)

At the country level, there are notable exceptions to the view that sharia should apply only to Muslims. These include Egypt, where 74 percent of Muslims say sharia should be the law of the land and nearly three-quarters of them (or 55 percent of all Egyptian Muslims) say Islamic law should apply to people of all faiths.

Sharia supporters around the world widely agree that Muslim leaders and religious judges should decide family and property disputes. The median percentage of sharia supporters who favor applying religious law in the domestic sphere is highest in Southeast Asia (84 percent), followed by South Asia (78 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (78 percent), and Central Asia (62 percent). In Southern and Eastern Europe, fewer (41 percent) think religious judges should oversee family and property issues. (See chart in How Should Sharia Be Applied? in Chapter 1: Beliefs About Sharia.)

In South Asia, support for applying religious law to family and property disputes is coupled with strong backing for severe criminal punishments, such as cutting off the hands of thieves (median of 81 percent) and the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their faith (76 percent). In the Middle East-North Africa region, medians of more than half favor strict criminal penalties (57 percent) and the execution of those who convert from Islam to another faith (56 percent).

By contrast, fewer Muslims back severe criminal punishments in Southeast Asia (median of 46 percent), Central Asia (38 percent), and Southern and Eastern Europe (36 percent). Even smaller medians in these same regions (between 13 percent and 27 percent) say apostates should face the death penalty for leaving Islam to join another religion. (For more details on views toward apostasy, see How Should Sharia Be Applied? in Chapter 1: Beliefs About Sharia.)

Sharia in China

Matthew S. Erie, a trained lawyer and ethnographer who teaches at Oxford University, lived for two years in Linxia, a small city in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu. Known as China’s Mecca, it is a center of religious life for the Hui. Mr. Erie’s book, “China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law,” is a look at how Sharia — Islamic law and ethics — is implemented among the Hui. [Source: Ian Johnson New York Times, September 6, 2016]

One of Erie’s main points is that people in the West often associate Sharia with stoning and amputations while it actually quite flexible and responsive to changing conditions. Erie told the New York Times: “The parameters are wide, from dietary considerations to interpersonal relations. Some of it is deciding what is halal food. But it’s also what we would call torts in the U.S. — when someone driving a vehicle strikes a pedestrian. A lot of time the authorities will ask the mosques to aid in evidence-gathering. We have a localized sense of Hui morality, that may be inflected with Sharia and that might affect the outcomes — the amount of the settlement, for example. The ahongs [Hui term for cleric] will help determine an amount.

On its limits in China, Erie said: “It’s not used in criminal law, where the state has the monopoly on using its own legitimated force. But in social relations, the Hui are part of this local dynamic — the clerical authority and the authority of the local state. The state realizes it needs the local clerics. If the state were to consciously exclude the local religious authorities, it would lose legitimacy in the eyes of the believers.

Are Hui satisfied?: “There is a spectrum of opinions. They push for more autonomy and decision-making ability but are not always allowed to. In this, I think their struggles parallel those of Muslim minorities elsewhere — in France, Germany or the U.S. — but in China they do not have recourse to formal law, political institutions or even civil society. Rather, they rely on their ties to the government and increasingly transnational networks to protect their personal and collective interests.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Pew Research Center, Arab News, Jeddah; Encyclopedia.com, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Library of Congress and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024