THERE are over 1.2 billion Muslims today worldwide, which is over 20 percent of the world’s population.” By the year 2000, one out of every four persons on the planet was a Muslim.” There are 35 nations with population over 50 percent Muslims, and there are another 21 nations that have significant Muslim populations. There are 19 nations which have declared Islam in their respective constitutions. The Muslim religion is a global one and is rapidly expanding. The sheer number of Muslims living today makes the idea of putting Islamic Law into a footnote in contemporary writings inappropriate.

The most difficult part of Islamic Laws for most westerners to grasp is that there is no separation of church and state. The religion of Islam and the government are one. Islamic Law is controlled, ruled and regulated by the Islamic religion. The theocracy controls all public and private matters.

Government, law and religion are one. There are varying degrees of this concept in many nations, but all law, government and civil authority rests upon it and it is a part of Islamic religion. There are civil laws in Muslim nations for Muslim and non-Muslim people. Sharia is only applicable to Muslims. Most Americans and other schooled in Common Law have great difficulty with that concept. The U.S. Constitution (Bill of Rights) prohibits the government from “establishing a religion.” The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded in numerous cases that the U.S. Government can’t favour one religion over another.

That concept is implicit for most U.S. legal scholars and many U.S. academicians believe that any mixture of “church and state” is inherently evil and filled with many problems. They reject all notions of a mixture of religion and government. To start with such preconceived notions limits the knowledge base and information available to try solve many social and criminals problems.
MOHAMED KHAN