Radical Islam's Rules

The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law

Contributions by Maarten G. Barends, Hamouda Bella, Mehrangiz Kar, Kavian Milani, the Rand Corporation, Peter G. Riddell, Stephen Schwartz, Nina Shea Edited by Paul Marshall

Paperback - £46.00

Publication date:

25 February 2005

Length of book:

248 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742543621

A major feature of the rise of Islamism in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and parts of the West is the rapid growth of a starkly repressive version of Islamic shari'a law, often fueled by funds and support from Saudi Arabia. The central purpose of Islamists, including terrorists, is to impose such law in all Muslim lands, and then throughout the world in a new Caliphate. Despite its importance, this worldwide growth of extreme shari'a is under-documented and little understood. By a comparative study over the last twenty-five years of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia, this book shows its terrible effects on human rights, especially the status of women and religious freedom, of Muslims as well as religious minorities, and on democracy itself. It also shows that such laws are a direct threat to the American interest of advancing democracy and human rights, that the United States lacks a policy for dealing with the spread of extreme shari'a, and concludes with policy recommendations for the United States regarding specific countries confronting extreme shari'a.
That theocracies do exist—and must be resisted by U.S. foreign policy—is ably demonstrated in the anthology Radical Islam's Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law. Edited by Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, the book includes ten essays describing how radical Muslims—including the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia—have fostered the rise of religion-based oppression worldwide.