While trying to be respectful, but responsive to OP, let me make two arguments:
ONE
- Sharia law is based on the religious moral teachings of Islam;
- Many people, especially those who are not Islamic, disagree with some of these beliefs;
- Many people/countries do not support a theocracy, regardless of the religion;
Rightly or wrongly, those are facts.
But when you take those religious beliefs, and extend it to secular law, thereby holding its tenets to those who do not believe in the principles, it is wrong. I may not eat meat on Friday during Lent, but I will gladly sit down and dine with you in a restaurant on those dates.
TWO
Sharia law does not give equal protection to certain groups (women, non-Islamics), and the penalties, as I have pointed out earlier, can be very harsh. Again, you, as a male Islam, may support it. But many do not, and you have no right to have your beliefs held over them.
I could to try make other arguments, and point out where in the Quoran, it is not as simple, consistent, or benign, as where you have cited (just like the Bible has passages that can be considered contradictory). But I am not going to be able to cite you point for point, and that goes beyond my two arguments above.
I don't know if this comment is refer to the OP or to me, because for sure the OP is not a male Muslim, I think the male Muslim in this forum can be count by finger, as far as I know is me and R16. So I assume this comment attributed to me. I thought the discussion already end in the result "agree to be disagree" however if you insisting I will also share what I learnt as a Muslim regarding this issue.
First. The OP doesn't bragging about the implementation shariah law, such discussion only reveal later on, as I also don't share the optimistic as other Muslims like hizbut tahrir on hoping on the implementation of shariah law in European country or at least arguing about it.
So keep in mind, my argument here is just focus on the entity of shariah law itself not about the argumentation on should it be or not implement in any country, even though accommodation on the minority always sound good to me, not only for Muslims but also for other religions or belief but I will not coerce or try to force peoples mind to agree about it by arguing. Open society and open law always seems less paranoid and more welcoming.
- Sharia law is not only based on the religious moral teachings of Islam the implementation is based by various local belief that also exist within the Muslims community. In Islam we constitute both universalistic approach which in Ottoman period known as
adamiyyah derive from the hanafi school, which each humanity be their Muslims or non Muslims same in common agreement regarding various aspects in humanity.
However it also constitute to accommodate local law and perspective, here where the relativity of right and wrong or difference moral system and local law been accommodated by the shariah. That mean as TK already stated the non Muslims doesn't been ruled by the shariah law, but they are ruled by their own local customs and law. In Caliphate times we got orthodox court, Jewish court, Catholics court, or in Ottoman there also Armenian courts to rules specific population with its own specific rules which in Ottoman it is known as
millet system. Asserting shariah law derive from Quran and Hadith to rule the entire population it is contradict to the very core principle of shariah law itself, which is it doesn't rule non Muslims unless they requested and the non Muslims is ruled by their own moral system and belief.
So think of two level of truth, one is universalistic and agreed upon, other is local and varied. Both are employee in Islam. It is far from being fatalist. So for example we don't need to waste our time to attacking other system and belief in Islam, which something that the Western Orientalism tradition do and still gain its popularity and tradition until now. We pretty much curious or disagree with other, but in no way we want to interfere or dictating other about right and wrong or civilizing other savage civilization, this is not our mission in earth.
- Those who aren't Islamic not been ruled by shariah law as shariah law itself doesn't mean Islamic law and not treat Islamic law as the only legal law within its body. So why the Orthodox disagree when they ruled by their own legal system and organize by their patriarch? That assertion is contra history.
- You can't describe Islamic system as common European theocracy. The thing is you try to understand us by your own history or by your own assumption regarding "the other".
TWO
Sharia law give equal protection to groups within them. The Arianus, Nestorian, Monophysite actually escaped from Orthodox persecution to live inside the Islamic country as a protected citizen (
dhimni) they pay taxes that much lower than the Byzantine taxed and nearly similar in amount with zakat which is two and half percent of yearly income, which even much lower than our tax today, beside that they also pay land tax. The tax that they gave already included the protection fee so they don't need to go for obligatory military draft when fighting becoming compulsory for every able Muslims (
fardhu ain) for example when the enemy attacked the city.
The governor of Damascus in the time of Umar, Abu Ubaidah even gave back the moneys that he was taken as a tax to the local population because he heard large soldier from Byzantine marching to Damascus, so he gave back all the money that he collected because he afraid he unable to protect the civilian if his army been defeated, touch by his attitude mass conversion to Islam happening at that time, and most were refused to given back to money.
The punishment are indeed can be very harsh, but it is for us Muslims both man and woman. And it is only punished if it is not a personal crime but a public crime, that meant, you will not be punish if you drink alcohol within your house but you will be punish if you do that in public, that also apply for adultery, you may not disagree with that but it is the case. However that is only punishment for crime case and it is not the everything of Islamic law as other poster already stated, it just 1 from a hundred percent things that peoples always to see and exploit as the only things about Islamic law.
