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Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, is also the editor of Radical Islam's Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005). Stan Guthrie, a CT senior associate editor and author of Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, interviewed Marshall.

You distinguish between two kinds of Shari'ah, or Islamic law, as understood and implemented by Muslims worldwide. What are they?

In the last three years, I've been to various parts of the Muslim world talking to people about Shari'ah. I use the term extreme Shari'ah for the sorts of things that happen in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan—people getting accused of blasphemy or stoned for adultery, and so on. But most Muslims use the term in a very broad sense. In Indonesia, if you ask people, "Do you think women should be stoned to death for adultery?" more than 80 percent of the population says no. If you ask, "Is it okay for Indonesia to have a woman leader?" more than 90 percent of the population says yes, that's fine. So they have something very different in mind from the Taliban. You get similar results right now in Iraq. [When asked,] "Do you think Iraq should be governed by Islamic law?" about 80 percent say yes. If you ask, "Do you think there should be legal equality between men and women?" about 80 percent say yes. For many Muslims, the term Shari'ah has a very broad sense that the country should be governed in a way that God wants.

So most Muslims would not agree that, say, the punishment for theft should be amputation of one's hand?

Correct. They see that as something that used to be done, but not really fitting for the sorts of societies we live in now, that it's not the core of what Islam is about.

Does this attitude point to modernizing tendencies in Islam?

There are modernizing tendencies, but [a larger factor is that] the vast majority of Muslims in the world live in Africa and Asia, not in the Middle East. Their views on Islam are not very precise. They don't read the Qur'an; they can't read it.

Does that present an opportunity for extreme Islamists to clarify the Qur'an for them in a way that would be dangerous for heretics and adulterers?

Very much so. In countries such as Bangladesh or Indonesia, Islam historically has been very broad and moderate in outlook. But radical Islamic preachers, especially from the Gulf, especially funded by Saudi Arabia, are coming in. They've built mosques. They're providing people, imams, scholarships. And so you're getting an increasing radicalization in these populations that beforehand were more or less theologically illiterate. People are telling them, "If you want to be a true Muslim, a good Muslim, a proper Muslim, this is what you should do." This means, essentially, that they should start imitating Saudis.

How did extreme Shari'ah spread across the world?

In 1975, only one major country practiced these types of laws: Saudi Arabia. Beginning in 1979, you had the overthrow in Iran of the Shah by Ayatollah Khomeini, and Iran began to institute similar laws. There are differences: Iran is Shiite; Saudi Arabia is Sunni. But in terms of the hudud laws, the criminal laws, which involve amputation, crucifixion, stoning, and so on, they're very similar in outlook. In both cases, the status of women is very, very poor. The status of minorities is very, very poor.

Within Pakistan, the growth of such laws has been gradual. Through the 1980s, [we've seen] the increased influence of Shari'ah law, especially under General [Muhammad] Zia-ul-Haq, and the introduction of blasphemy laws for anybody insulting God, the Qur'an, or the Prophet Muhammad.

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February 2006, Vol. 50, No. 2