Refuting Islam

Sharia Law

When Religion Becomes Totalitarian

How Islam’s Legal Code Extends Religious Control into Every Corner of Life

Many religions have moral or spiritual laws that guide the behavior of their followers. But Islam takes this further. Much further.

In Islam, the legal code known as Sharia doesn’t merely regulate prayer or fasting — it governs every detail of personal, social, legal, and political life. From bathroom etiquette to state execution, from inheritance rules to war declarations, Sharia transforms religion into a totalitarian system — one that demands obedience, punishes dissent, and claims divine legitimacy for authoritarian control.

This article explores what Sharia really is, how it developed, and why it stands in direct opposition to the principles of human freedom, individual rights, and rational justice.

📜 What Is Sharia?

The word “Sharia” literally means “the path” in Arabic — supposedly the path laid out by Allah for how humans should live. But in practice, Sharia is a man-made system, built by clerics who interpret:

The Qur’an
The Hadith (narrations about Muhammad’s life)
Ijma (consensus of scholars)
Qiyas (analogical reasoning)

This has resulted in a complex and often contradictory set of laws that are claimed to be divine, even though they were developed by humans centuries after Muhammad’s death.

🧱 Sharia’s Structure: A Religious-Legal Bureaucracy

Sharia law is codified through fiqh — Islamic jurisprudence — which is divided into four main Sunni schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali), each with its own rulings and interpretations.

The scope of Sharia includes:

Personal law: prayer, fasting, dress, hygiene, dietary rules
Family law: marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance
Criminal law: theft, adultery, blasphemy, apostasy
Economic law: banking, taxation, contracts
Political law: governance, warfare, treatment of non-Muslims

This is not “moral guidance.” It is a full-blown legal system that controls both private and public life.

⚖️ Hudud: The Harshest Penalties

Sharia includes a category of punishments called “Hudud” — fixed penalties supposedly prescribed by Allah.

These include:

Amputation for theft (Qur’an 5:38)
Flogging for fornication (Qur’an 24:2)
Stoning to death for adultery (based on Hadith, not Qur’an)
Death for apostasy (Hadith: Bukhari 3017)
Death for blasphemy
Flogging or execution for drinking alcohol (Hadith-based)

These punishments are not symbolic or metaphorical — they are still enforced in modern Islamic states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, and Afghanistan.

🧠 Sharia and Thought Control

Sharia doesn't just punish actions — it polices thought and belief:

Apostasy (leaving Islam) is punishable by death.
Blasphemy (insulting Allah, Muhammad, or Islam) is a capital crime.
Questioning doctrine can be considered heresy or fitna (sedition).
Doubting the Qur’an or Hadith can lead to social ostracism or imprisonment.

In effect, intellectual freedom is illegal under Sharia.

💡 The Totalitarian Nature of Sharia

Let’s break down why Sharia is totalitarian by modern political science standards. A totalitarian system:

Feature	Present in Sharia?	Example
Control of private life	✅ Yes	Laws about dress, food, sex, hygiene
State-religion fusion	✅ Yes	Iran, Saudi Arabia, Taliban's Afghanistan
Suppression of dissent	✅ Yes	Death for apostasy or blasphemy
Legal inequality	✅ Yes	Women inherit less, testimony worth half, non-Muslims pay jizya tax
Punishment of thoughtcrime	✅ Yes	Thought, doubt, or criticism is punished
Religious police enforcement	✅ Yes	Mutawa (Saudi), Taliban's Ministry for Virtue

Sharia is not merely religious — it is political, social, and authoritarian.

🚫 Legal Inequality in Sharia

Sharia enforces unequal treatment under the law:

Gender-Based Inequality

Men can marry non-Muslims; women cannot.
Polygamy allowed for men, not women.
Men can divorce unilaterally; women must appeal to a court.
Inheritance: daughters get half the share of sons.
Testimony: a woman’s is worth half a man’s in court.

Religious Inequality

Non-Muslims must pay a jizya tax and are treated as second-class citizens.
Non-Muslims cannot hold certain offices or build new places of worship in many Islamic states.
Conversion into Islam is rewarded; leaving it is punished.

Sharia legally encodes a hierarchy of worth — by gender and belief.

🔥 Sharia in the Modern World

Despite claims that Sharia is “only personal” or “voluntary,” here’s the reality:

Pakistan: Blasphemy carries a mandatory death sentence.
Saudi Arabia: Beheadings, floggings, and amputations continue under Sharia.
Iran: Hijab enforcement and religious police patrol the streets.
Afghanistan (Taliban): Public executions, banning education for girls, hand-chopping.
Nigeria: Sharia states carry out flogging and stoning.
Malaysia and Indonesia: Sharia is creeping into secular legal codes.

In Muslim-majority democracies, Sharia is being pushed as legislation.
In Muslim minorities, Sharia courts operate parallel to national law (e.g., UK, Canada).

🧼 Common Apologist Defenses — And Why They Fail

“Sharia is just like religious law in Judaism or Christianity.”
→ No, it is codified into criminal punishment and state law — unlike religious practices in other faiths.

“Only a small number of Muslims support harsh punishments.”
→ Polling shows widespread support in many countries:
Pew 2013 found 84% of Muslims in South Asia support death for apostasy.

“Sharia is misunderstood — it promotes justice.”
→ Justice for whom? Sharia enforces inequality, gender apartheid, and thought control.

“You can’t criticize Sharia without being Islamophobic.”
→ That’s an attempt to silence criticism — exactly what a totalitarian system would do.

🎯 Final Word

Sharia law is not a spiritual path — it is a political and legal machine designed to control every aspect of human life.

It claims divine authority while enforcing:

Brutal corporal punishments
Gender and religious inequality
Suppression of free speech and belief
State-mandated moral conformity

Islamic apologists present Sharia as a system of divine justice. But in practice, it functions as a theocratic dictatorship, disguised as piety.

Until Sharia is separated from political power, Islam cannot coexist with modern values of freedom, equality, or human rights. This is not just a theological issue — it is a human rights emergency.