Britain In A Burqa: How Sharia Law Is Coming For The West

In early December 2023, videos of people chanting for Sharia Law in the UK circulated online.

Posted to X, we see a video featuring what appears to be a small-scale protest in a shopping area, consisting of majority Muslim men who chant, “Sharia for UK.” It later cuts to the protest moving to a more residential area, where a Muslim woman waves at the protestors, seemingly in support.

The video on Instagram features a man at a much larger-scale protest calling for an end to democracy itself. “We are sick and tired of democracy! We are here to provide you an alternative, and that is the Sharia! That is Islam! People of Britain, take a look around you, do you not see the corruption? Do you not see the oppression? Look to how [sic] your democracy fails!” Around him are Muslim men holding signs saying, “Democracy is cancer / Islam is the answer.”

According to the 2021 census, the Muslim population in England and Wales makes up 6.5% of the total population (note that Scotland and Northern Ireland are not included). Pew Research suggests that the Muslim population of Europe could reach 7.4% by 2050, even if all immigration were to have halted in 2016. If immigration trends continue or even increase, that figure gets to 11.2% and 14%, respectively.

Image Source: Pew Research

Looking at the numbers alone, why would this be a problem? Classical liberal values were born in England and spread throughout the Western world. The belief in equal opportunity for the individual is one of the core tenets and doesn’t exclude anyone on the basis of religion.

The problem emerges with Sharia Law, and its direct opposition to the core beliefs the West was founded on.

What Is Sharia?

Those who want to sell people on the idea that Sharia is inherently good would refer to its literal definition – “path to life-giving water” – and assert that all it really is is the strictest, defined path for God-fearing individuals to follow. It’s supposedly not meant to replace governments, and people living under non-Islamic governments shouldn’t be coerced into it.

If you actually look at outlines of Sharia Law, the tepid elevator pitch goes against the Quran’s teachings on subjugation, which instructs Muslims to fight those who don’t believe in Allah. Non-believers ought to be made to believe or forced to pay a fine. If that fails, they’re called to be slain.

Protestors in action don’t appear to be calling for peaceful coexistence and perhaps even veer toward the Quran’s call for forced subjugation.

Trying to sugarcoat the intention behind those who are calling for Sharia Law, or belittling the potential impact on innocents whose country of origin was never Muslim, is dangerous. No matter how pure an intention is, all that matters is the actions and consequences it manifests. No matter how positively someone tries to paint Sharia, if the laws are implemented into government, it would result in a violent theocracy with the obligation to kill detractors.

Under Sharia Law, thieves are called to get their offending hand cut off. When dealing with a “rebellious woman,” Sharia Law calls people to attempt to convince her of the error of her ways; if that doesn’t work, she should be deprived of sex, and if that fails, she should be beaten. Slanderers and gossipers are called to be beaten and outcast from society.

If the extremists calling for Sharia Law win, it would open the door to a society no one would want to live in. 

If you accept that Sharia really is a good thing, and a true path to God, you’re stuck relying on the fallible judgment of human beings. According to experts reporting for the BBC, safeguards and high burdens of proof are present in Sharia Law, but they’re not often put into practice. Think about how often rules or laws are bent just because of someone’s money or influence. Why would an implementation of Sharia Law, managed by humans, be any different?

Besides that, modern implementations of Islam seek to oppress women, or at least hold them accountable for the actions of men. The Quran (and, by extension, Sharia Law) calls for both men and women to dress modestly and doesn’t make explicit mention of heavy garments like the burqa or the niqab. Still, women in Islamic societies are called at least to wear a hijab, but more conservative Islamic societies call for them to conceal themselves even more. Meanwhile, men aren’t called to dress in a male-equivalent niqab or burqa (men are called to not imitate women, nor vice-versa). Why is that? Some would say it’s to help protect women from bad men who would look at them with lustful or perverted intentions. Why would a society put the brunt on women, rather than urge men to have even the smallest amount of accountability for the way they objectify women?

Paradoxical Tolerance

The West and the classical liberal ideals born from it call for individualism, equal rights, and liberty. These ideals allow for all individuals to practice their religions and retain their culture, as is evidenced by Sharia councils in the UK being allowed to exist.

Yet, unfettered tolerance would make it so that the freely practiced religions and their extremist believers can flourish, as we can see by the undisrupted protests in the UK. Meanwhile, there are those who have been arrested for peacefully and silently praying.

There’s a point where tolerance and classical liberal ideals will open the doors to the downfall of those very ideals. If the extremists calling for Sharia Law (which would surely be augmented with their own modern sensibilities, biases, and perceptions) win, it would open the door to a society no one would want to live in. Christians and Jews would be persecuted for daring to believe in their own God; the LGBTQ community would be condemned to death for having “illegal” sex or imitating the opposite sex; those who advocate for “sexual liberation” by way of sex work and prostitution would be advocating for haram practices.

Closing Thoughts

To advocate for an implementation of Sharia Law in government, as protestors have been, would imply a complete destruction of the West. Classical liberalism must have limits, particularly when its foundational beliefs and liberties are at risk, but seeing how the UK and her citizens and children have suffered in the name of tolerance and preference toward migrants, there’s no sign of that limit even coming close to existing.

Not all Muslims advocate for Sharia, or at least not forcing Sharia onto others at the governmental level. But it doesn’t take a majority to make significant change, as long as they’re vocal – or violent – enough.

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