[pasabagi]

> sharia

Can anybody offer some insight into what people mean by that? I know that in the 19th century, sharia was basically just a legal tradition, that drew on Islam (just as western legal traditions draw on Christianity, or eastern ones Confucianism). Is it more extreme these days?

[tptacek]

No. Sharia means different things to different people. Think of someone who calls themselves a "practicing Catholic", and then think of what that might mean to a non-Catholic hearing that. Do they eat meat on Fridays? Do they attend church every day? Do they protest health clinics? There are practicing Catholics who do all of these things and none of them.

Unfortunately, the word has been seized on in western culture to refer to the legal beliefs of militant Islamism. But that's not at all what it means to most Muslims.