In the wake of a largely peaceful revolution in Egypt—a people’s revolt, if you will—we keep hearing more and more about Shariah law.
         In fact, some surveys of the Egyptian people have found widespread support for Shariah.
        What exactly is Shariah, and what would it mean for Egyptians?
         Very simply, it is strict Islamic law.
         I spoke recently with an Egyptian woman who grew up in a Muslim household and has since converted to Christianity.
         She lives safely in the United States. But if she lived back in Egypt, she could easily be murdered because of Shariah law.
The Egyptian woman I spoke with is Nonie (pronounced NON-ee) Darwish, author of the books, Now They Call Me Infidel and Cruel and Usual Punishment.
         She said, "The word Shariah is an Arabic word meaning literally ‘the way.’ It’s the way to live. And Shariah is a set of very detailed laws."
         These laws are found both in the Qu’ran and also the Hadith, which are the collection of the sayings of Mohammed. Nonie notes, "Whatever Muhammad did in the 7th century became the law for the Muslims to live by forever."
        Shariah law is often presented to the West as religious law, simply governing how Muslims live out Islam in their private lives. Shariah law governs everything from how to wash your hands to how to run a country.
        If you want to get a picture of what strict Shariah looks like, look at Saudi Arabia. Because of strict Shariah law, virtually every Friday in that country, convicted thieves have a hand and a foot chopped off. And converts to Christianity from Muslim backgrounds get beheaded.
         Shariah even teaches Muslims that, in some circumstances, it is OK to take the law into your own hands.
         Nonie told me, "There’s a law in Shariah that tells Muslims…anybody on the street can murder an apostate and he will not be punished for it."
         That’s why she would take her life into her own hands just by returning to her native land—even though her own father died by an Israeli letter bomb to retaliate for his anti-Israeli terrorist work.
         Muslim terrorists would be inclined to embrace her, if for no other reason than that her father died as a Muslim "martyr," fighting the Jewish infidels.
         But she has committed the ultimate sin---converting to another religion.
        Another aspect of Shariah law is honor killing. Nonie says those who engage in honor killing in the Muslim world are often tolerated, and the police look the other way.
        An honor killing, for example, is when a father kills his own daughter for violating the family’s honor by allegedly doing something immoral, such as engaging in pre-marital sex.
        Tragically, some of these honor killings are now even taking place in the Western world—and for much lesser offenses--like the Muslim man in Germany, now jailed for life, who killed his German-born wife because she was "too independent."
         An Egyptian man in Texas shot in cold blood his two teenage daughters because they had boyfriends. Then, before his crime was discovered, he flew back to his native Egypt to escape American justice. Such honor killings may seem rare, but they’re not uncommon.
         It’s interesting that so many American liberals who always clamor about women’s rights can’t seem to see how repressive strict Islamic law is toward women.
         Wherever Shariah law is in effect, women (not to mention minority religious groups) are second class citizens.
For example, Saudi Arabia has strict Islamic law and because of that women can’t drive.
        Under strict Shariah law, a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s testimony.
        If a woman claims to be raped, it can only be established to be truthful by the testimony of four male eyewitnesses.
        A woman cannot be caught with a man in public who is not her husband or relative. Nonie notes, "The police go into coffeehouses to check if the male sitting with the female is a blood relative or not." If a woman is caught with a non-relative, she will face public flogging—under Shariah.
        A woman under strict Islamic law must be covered from head to toe.
        And on and on it goes with strict Shariah law.
         I wonder if the Egyptians realize what they are clamoring for when they claim to want strict Shariah law.
         If they get it and they don’t like it—all I can is that the "cure" is worse than the disease.