Contrary to what the Western collective mind believes, Islamic Sharia law does not focus on stonings to death, amputations or the death penalty. Instead, it is a sophisticated legal system that seeks to spread justice, mercy and fraternity among Muslims, as well as among Muslims in their dealings with non-Muslims and the rest of the created universe. The issue of the possible application of Islamic Sharia law has been controversial for decades, since it has been influenced by many fears and misperceptions. In real terms, mentioning the application of Sharia law can get mixed up with the punishments called hodoud in Islamic law. The overall concepts of Islamic Sharia are applied in Egypt, since the beliefs of Islam are spreading everywhere, and the majority of the country's laws are compatible with Sharia's rules. The tricky issue comes with the possibility of applying the punishments set out in Sharia law. Asked for his opinion of the application of Islamic law, the late Egyptian writer Ahmed Bahaaeddin replied by saying that he would not mind provided that he could first know who would interpret and implement it. He explained that the most important point was how we should understand the law and apply it. It is an issue of Muslims, not Islam, he said, since religious interpretation, whether in Islam or any other religion, has long been influenced by the surrounding culture and how this is understood in a particular country or countries throughout history. When I was 20 years old and full of enthusiasm and energy, I was convinced of the importance of applying Islamic Sharia in order to rid society of all its ills and create an ideal society of the kind that has never yet existed on earth, even in the era of the prophets. Many years have passed since then, and during this period I have had a chance to study at home and abroad the topic from various legal, religious, social, and economic and political angles. I have become much more aware of the complexity of the subject and more able to understand the essence and objectives of Islam in real terms. I have found that some of the current talk about the application of the hodoud punishments is far from the core values of Islamic Sharia that have long been applied in one way or another in Egypt. First, the hudood punishments are just a fraction of overall Islamic law, and they are mentioned in only ten verses in the Quran. Islam is a religion based on a divine message that was revealed in order to unite people and to spread justice, love, mercy and the reconstruction of the earth through education and the dissemination of morality. It maximises the values of work and the pursuit of knowledge and devotion to God. These are the objectives of Islam, and it is these that should attract the most attention in today's discourse. As a result, the focus on a single aspect of Islamic law is evidence of a limited understanding of one of the greatest and fastest-growing religions worldwide. Second, the application of the hodoud punishments, according to the Islamic rules themselves, is very difficult, and it is sometimes even an impossible task. Suffice it to say, in the case of adultery, for example, that the punishments require the presence of four witnesses who saw the illegitimate sexual relationship and are able to swear to it. Significantly, the testimony of just three witnesses is not accepted, and these three could be liable to punishment themselves if they mention what they have seen unless a fourth witness is able to confirm the righteousness of their testimony. Similarly in cases of robbery there are many conditions that have to be in place before hodoud punishments can be envisaged. The thief should not be very poor, for example, and the stolen object must be well-guarded and so on. Third, in order for the punishments to be enforced the community as a whole needs to provide every citizen with adequate education, healthcare and a reasonable level of income. This should be the case before hodoud punishments can be applied. The common mistake here is to repeat the historical incident in which the Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab suspended the applicability of the punishment for theft in a year of famine. What one should draw from this incident is that the Caliph Omar saw that the conditions for the application of this particular punishment, as mentioned above, particularly the provision of an acceptable level of income, were not in place and therefore that the punishment could not be applied. Until we reach a satisfactory stage of economic and societal evolution, any talk about the application of the hodoud punishments is misplaced. Another rule is that the punishments should be avoided in cases of doubt. According to some scholars, there can be no punishment if the wrongdoer repents before the discovery of his crime. All these points underline the fact that there are real difficulties in applying these punishments in real terms, and that they are in any case just a small part of the Sharia as a whole, which is mainly concerned with belief, ethics and the meaning of life. We should also consider the arguments of some senior Islamic scholars who have argued that the hodoud punishments are of symbolic value only, and that they were introduced in order to deter wrongdoers and prevent them from even thinking of committing crimes. They are not to be applied in an indiscriminate manner, as was done by the former Sudanese president Jafar Nimeiri in the early seventies. The result of this was the disastrous war between the north and south of Sudan, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and which eventually led to the independence of the South. Let us remember that the national interest should be our top priority, since, according to Islamic Sharia itself, “avoiding and suppressing the corrupting cause is more significant than bringing benefit.” We should keep this in mind when taking into account many of the internal factors in Egypt, among them the fact that were Sharia law to be implemented in Egypt, the country's Copts, an important component of the population, could feel alienated from their own country.
