This book is the first ethnographic study of Muslim minorities' practice of Islamic law in contemporary China.

This edited volume offers a collection of papers that present a comparative analysis of the development of Shari’a in countries with Muslim minorities, such as America, Australia, Germany, and Italy, as well as countries with Muslim majorities, such as Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Tunisia. The Sociology of Shari’a provides a global analysis of these important legal transformations and analyzesthe topic from a sociological perspective. It explores examples of non-Western countries that have a Muslim minority in their populations, including South Africa, China, Singapore, and the Philippines. In addition, the third part of the book includes case studies that explore some ground-breaking theories on the sociology of Shari’a, such as the application of Black, Chambliss, and Eisenstein’s sociological perspectives.

Why fears about Muslim integration into Western society—propagated opportunistically by some on the right—misread history and misunderstand multiculturalism. In the United States and in Europe, politicians, activists, and even some scholars argue that Islam is incompatible with Western values and that we put ourselves at risk if we believe that Muslim immigrants can integrate into our society. Norway's Anders Behring Breivik took this argument to its extreme and murderous conclusion in July 2011. Meanwhile in the United States, state legislatures' efforts to ban the practice of Islamic law, or sharia, are gathering steam—despite a notable lack of evidence that sharia poses any real threat. In Blaming Islam, John Bowen uncovers the myths about Islam and Muslim integration into Western society, with a focus on the histories, policy, and rhetoric associated with Muslim immigration in Europe, the British experiment with sharia law for Muslim domestic disputes, and the claims of European and American writers that Islam threatens the West. Most important, he shows how exaggerated fears about Muslims misread history, misunderstand multiculturalism's aims, and reveal the opportunism of right wing parties who draw populist support by blaming Islam.

Author Andrew G. Bostom expands upon his two previous groundbreaking compendia, The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, with this collection of his own recent essays on Sharia - Islamic law. The book elucidates, unapologetically, Sharia's defining Islamic religious principles and the consequences of its application across space and time, focusing upon contemporary illustrations. A wealth of unambiguous evidence is marshaled, distilled, and analyzed, including: objective, erudite studies of Sharia by leading scholars of Islam; the acknowledgment of Sharia's global "resurgence," even by contemporary academic apologists for Islam; an abundance of recent polling data from Muslim nations and Muslim immigrant communities in the West confirming the ongoing, widespread adherence to Sharia's tenets; the plaintive warnings and admonitions of contemporary Muslim intellectuals - freethinkers and believers, alike - about the incompatibility of Sharia with modern, Western-derived conceptions of universal human rights; and the overt promulgation by authoritative, mainstream international and North American Islamic religious and political organizations of traditional, Sharia-based Muslim legal systems as an integrated whole (i.e., extending well beyond mere "family-law aspects" of Sharia). Johannes J. G. Jansen, Professor for Contemporary Islamic Thought Emeritus at Utrecht University, says this book "will prove sobering to even staunch optimists."

What should be the place of Shari‘a—Islamic religious law—in predominantly Muslim societies of the world? In this ambitious and topical book, a Muslim scholar and human rights activist envisions a positive and sustainable role for Shari‘a, based on a profound rethinking of the relationship between religion and the secular state in all societies. An-Na‘im argues that the coercive enforcement of Shari‘a by the state betrays the Qur’an’s insistence on voluntary acceptance of Islam. Just as the state should be secure from the misuse of religious authority, Shari‘a should be freed from the control of the state. State policies or legislation must be based on civic reasons accessible to citizens of all religions. Showing that throughout the history of Islam, Islam and the state have normally been separate, An-Na‘im maintains that ideas of human rights and citizenship are more consistent with Islamic principles than with claims of a supposedly Islamic state to enforce Shari‘a. In fact, he suggests, the very idea of an “Islamic state” is based on European ideas of state and law, and not Shari‘a or the Islamic tradition. Bold, pragmatic, and deeply rooted in Islamic history and theology, Islam and the Secular State offers a workable future for the place of Shari‘a in Muslim societies.

In this book, a judge at the Shari'a Court of Jerusalem explains the religious law of Muslim minorities.

When democracy was introduced to Nigeria in 1999, one-third of its federal states declared that they would be governed by sharia, or Islamic law. This work argues that such a break with secular constitutional traditions in a multireligious country can have disastrous consequences