When I posted earlier this week on "Misconceptions and fear about sharia" [2], I wasn't expecting an overwhelmingly favourable response. It would have been unreasonable to imagine the post would appeal to Butterflies and Wheels [3].

I hadn't anticipated, however, quite such ad hominem attacks both on the NS, from Oliver Kamm [4] in the Times and at Harry's Place [5], where comments have risen to such levels of insight that one begins: "And Sholto? Who calls their son Sholto, FFS? Why not Bilbo, or Frodo? So he probably inherited the plonker genes." Ah, the rapier wit of the SCR . . .

Three thoughts:

First, that many of the responses accuse me of "promoting" sharia and of somehow betraying the NS by doing so. Nowhere do I do anything of the sort. I will not accept the distortion that merely discussing the subject is a form of promotion. The NS is about looking outwards into the world, and a system of law that in some form or other is favoured by millions ought to be a legitimate subject for discussion.

Second, the majority of commenters prove my point by focusing on the most extreme forms of sharia -- which as I have said, many Muslims feel to be perversions -- and concluding that that's all it is. They don't seem to be remotely open to the possibility that it could vary in any way.

Third, what I find disturbing is not just this identification of sharia solely with what happens in Saudi Arabia, for instance, but the sense that these commenters actively wish that to be the only available version. Given the popularity of Islamist parties, some of which have already won freely fought elections, such as the AKP in Turkey and Hamas in Palestine, and the fact that more would be sure to do so if some of the Middle Eastern autocracies loosened their grip, these commenters must foresee very bleak times ahead.

I do find it strange that they seem so determinedly desirous of a future they must fear. It's almost as though some of them actually want there to be a bloody and cataclysmic clash of civilisations [6] -- in which case, of course, the less we try to understand each other, the better.

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