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Beginning in 1983 in Sudan, the National Islamic Front, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, came into power. It instituted an extremely draconian form of Shari'ah. It executed people who opposed these laws on the grounds that opposing its type of Shari'ah was itself against Shari'ah. That was one of the factors that precipitated the civil war between the largely Arab, Muslim northern Sudan and the largely black, African Christian south. In Chechnya, southern Russia, rebels have been trying to imitate the Sudanese legal code.

How did it come to Nigeria?

Beginning in 1995, the state of Zamfara began to institute these types of laws. Of 36 states in the country, 12 of them now have these types of laws on the books. Some are much more severe than others. But essentially this has happened right across the northern swath of Nigeria, and there's increased pressure in the central areas of Nigeria.

In nearly all of these countries [Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and Nigeria], some form of Islamic law had been operating already … laws governing marriage, divorce, inheritance, and family law. But when I talk about the spread of Shari'ah, I mean that they changed the criminal code. They changed the law of evidence within the courts so that evidence from men and women was given different weight. They segregated public transportation systems so that unmarried men and women could not travel together, and so on. It's a quantum leap in the expression of Islam.

Has this extreme form of Islam spread elsewhere?

No other countries have adopted it wholesale. In fact, Malaysia has resisted these types of Shari'ah. In the last ten years, the two northern states tried to institute these laws. Because Malaysia is a federation, the federal government has the power to strike down these laws, and it has. But still, people in those two states have been arrested for blasphemy. Even though [such treatment] is strictly illegal, [local] governments can usually find a way to put someone in prison. Similarly, in Indonesia, there has been strong resistance at the national level to these types of laws. But at a town level or a county level, more extreme groups are starting to implement the laws. Indonesia is a big, sprawling country, and in lots of pockets around the country, people carry out the laws in their own way. You get vigilantes operating. In parts of western Java, someone driving a car on a Friday afternoon, Muslim or Christian, may get [his or her] car stoned.

You'll also find this going on in Bangladesh. It's not the government doing this, but if you're in poor, remote areas, you'll often find yourself subject to these laws.

What has been the impetus to spread extreme Shari'ah over the last 30 years?

In many of these countries, economically they have not been doing well. There's also extremely widespread corruption. Islamist parties, when they have campaigned, have spoken of poverty. They've also pointed out, correctly, the tremendous corruption. They've said, "The reason for our poverty, the reason our country is not doing well, is that we are not good Muslims. If we were truly faithful, if we were strict Muslims, we would do much better." They also say, "We're very committed Muslims. We will not be corrupt." And a lot of the support for more extreme forms of Islam comes from people who think, While they may be much too strict for me, at least they're going to be honest. I won't have to pay a bribe for every single thing I need in life.

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February 2006, Vol. 50, No. 2