Mishal Husain: 

I'd like to address the central issue that many people in this room, and many people generally have with the Shari'a, which is the sense of disquiet, distaste, maybe even disgust at what they hear about Shari'a in parts of the Muslim world and the suggestion that it is already being used in this country--and some people would like to see it used more in this country--and the unsettling effect that that has on many in mainstream society here; I mean, is this a system that has merit?

Sadakat Kadri: 

Well, I mean, there's crucial distinction that has to be drawn between the Shari'a, which is this hugely expansive vision of cosmic order that I've been describing, and principles of Islamic law, known in Arabic as "Fiqh"--a word that means understanding. If you're a devout Muslim, you don't argue against the Shari'a; the Shari'a is the path that God has laid down. But what you can do, and what people are doing all the time, is arguing over the correct interpretation of the Shari'a, arguing over the Fiqh. That's something that has been going on throughout Islamic history. The first rules about Islamic law weren't even written down for a century and a half after the Prophet's death, and it was another five centuries, half a millennium, before they assumed anything like a definitive form. So there have always been huge arguments over what Islamic law actually requires. There are four main schools of law in Sunni thought and there's a separate school of law in Shia thought, so these arguments do take place. But I guess we can boil it down saying that people have disquiet about things like chopping the hands of thieves off, which is laid down in the Qur'an, there's no denying that. Stoning adulterers to death--that's not, interestingly enough, laid down in the Qur'an--the penalty laid down in the Qur'an is one hundred lashes, but it was subsequently developed as a rule by jurists in years after the death of the Prophet that actually the Qur'an, while none of them would have said the Qur'an was wrong on that point, would have said, well, the fact that there's no revelation doesn't mean that you shouldn't stone adulterers to death.

In parentheses on that point, even though the Qur'an among non-Muslims has this reputation for being a violent book in the context of criminal justice, if one actually looks at the criminal justice provisions, there are only four criminal offenses laid down in the entire Qur'an. Apostasy isn't made punishable, blasphemy isn't made punishable. There are four criminal offenses, there is no mandatory death penalty in the Qur'an. The death penalty is referred to twice in the Qur'an, once for the crime of Heraba, which is waging war against God and his prophet, which was always understood to mean highway robbery, and then there's the replication of the Torah rule, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, which is dependent upon the wishes of a victim. Now that's a seventh-century rule. A basic point, which I deal with in my book, is that we're talking about a seventh-century system of justice here, and clearly I'm a human rights person. I've defended plenty of thieves in my time and I'm not going to suddenly start saying that we should start chopping thieves' hands off. I think that these rules have to be updated to take into account the fact that 1,400 years have elapsed since the revelation.

Mishal Husain: 

That's a very controversial point.

Sadakat Kadri: 

It is a controversial point.

Mishal Husain: 

The idea of updating is actually something that's never happened with the body of Islamic law and with Islamic teaching over the centuries.

Sadakat Kadri: 

Well, that's not strictly true. As far back as the ninth century you had a group called the Mu'tazilite who, I won't get into the big theological discussions, but basically there was a big argument in the ninth century in Baghdad about whether or not the Qur'an had always existed or whether it was created by God. And the argument was set off by esoteric arguments which had themselves been set off by the reception of Greek philosophy in Persia and Aristotelian ideas about the primary attributes of God and secondary attributes of God. The Mu'tazilite basically said, look, if you're a monotheist, you have to believe that God existed independent of himself before the Qur'an, so the Qur'an was clearly created. And there were traditionalist opponents of them who said, no, no, that's not right, look at the words of the Qur'an, the Qur'an says that it's an eternal book, so it's always been there.

Now that does sound like a really esoteric argument, but basically it's got crucial significance, because if the Qur'an was created, it means that it was given voice to by God at a specific moment in history, and if that was the case, then it's meaning will change over time. And that argument was battled over in the ninth century. Sunni Islam doesn't take the Mu'tazilite view. Sunni Islam is hostile to that idea, admittedly, that the Qur'an's meaning can change over time. But the Shia have always adopted the Mu'tazilite view that the Qur'an's meaning can change over time and that's why Shia Islam is significantly more flexible than Sunni.