Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he wants to test Muslims coming into America to make sure they don't want Sharia law to supersede the US constitution. Meanwhile some states have passed, or are trying to pass, laws to curb the possibility of Sharia law making its way onto the books in the US.
With
the rise in recent years of both radical Islamic terrorism and
anti-Muslim bigotry, Sharia -- or Islamic religious law -- has become a
hot topic of debate.
Some
of its harsher versions can demand women clad in all black, adulterers
being stoned and thieves getting their hands cut off. But Sharia governs
many other areas of Muslim life, such as prayer. And many Muslims,
turning to Sharia for moral guidance, have more moderate and varied
interpretations.
Here's what you need to know about Sharia:
What does its name mean?
The
word Sharia means "the path," or "a road that leads one to water." It
refers to a set of principles that govern the moral and religious lives
of Muslims.
"Sharia represents how
practicing Muslims can best lead their daily lives in accordance with
God's divine guidance," according to Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
What's in Sharia?
Sharia
is based on Islam's holy book, the Quran, and the life of prophet
Mohammed. The majority of it concerns the faith of the individual and
how to practice Islam, along with guidance on when to pray and how to
fast during Ramadan.
Shariah law,
according to Muslims, includes "the principle of treating other people
justly, of making sure that the financial system treats people fairly
... and most importantly the basic principles of Islamic fate," says Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman.
It encompasses things like marriage, divorce, inheritance and punishments for criminal offenses.
Is it one law, or many?
While
the Quran and the life of the prophet make up Sharia, its
interpretation is called 'fikh' and is done through Muslim scholarship.
Most practicing Muslims take their cues about their faith from Sharia,
but it is not practiced uniformly.
Its implementation varies greatly across the Muslim world. A Pew religious landscape survey found that 57% of American Muslims say there is more than one way to interpret Islam's teachings.
Terror
groups such as ISIS are trying to implement a brutal version of Sharia
law, but millions of Muslims are guided by a much more moderate
interpretation.
Where is it practiced?
Sharia has been applied in varying degrees and with great diversity in practice
-- both by individual Muslims and predominantly Muslim countries. While
both Saudi Arabia and Iran claim to be ruled by Sharia, they differ
greatly in how they implement its laws.
When
asked about how they want their nations' laws crafted, many Muslims are
comfortable with Sharia governing family law but don't want to see severe corporate punishment implemented.
What do American Muslims want?
Most Muslims enjoy the religious freedom they need to practice their faith, which is guaranteed by the US constitution.
"It
doesn't consume my life that I want to make it the governing law of the
country I live in. I am very content to live in the US under the
constitution," says retired Lt. Col. Shareda Hosein in an interview with CNN. "And for me the constitution affords me my freedom of religion, which is the most important thing for me and other Muslims."
(CNN)