There can be little doubt that today, as Islam steadily surges forward, powerful and decisive in directing and shaping the flow of events in the Muslim countries, the world is witnessing a phenomenon of far-reaching importance to its future. In this whole movement of Islamic resurgence, nothing stands out as more symbolic of Muslim aspirations than the commitment to re- establish the Shari'ah, the code of conduct for total life laid down by Islam. Every country of the Muslim world is pulsating with an intense longing to shape life in accordance with its precepts. The Shari'ah, in short, in the eyes of friend and foe alike, has come to epitomise the goal towards which Muslims are restlessly trying to advance in quest of their destiny.
But, paradoxically, it is the Shari'ah which, more than any other element in Islam, seems to arouse the greatest misgivings and most intense feelings of fear, hostility and ridicule both among those who are not within the fold of Islam and those Muslims who are either unaware of or have become intellectually alienated from their own traditions. For many of them, the Shari'ah is something barbaric and cruel, inhuman and uncivilised, which is trying to turn the clock back on progress and modernisation and plunge the world back into the Dark Ages (as if it was 'dark' in the world of Islam at the time it was 'dark' in Europe!): women will be no better than slaves and non-Muslims treated as second-class citizens. Cut off the hand of a thief; stone the adulterer; veil the woman; this, according to its opponents, is the sum substance of that Shari'ah which is so deeply inspiring Muslims everywhere today.
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