Laws of the land  Dr Rowan Williams is interested in what sharia
actually says. The rest of the country is more interested in
whether and how it might be enforced     • Jump to comments ()
Dr Rowan Williams' interview with the BBC's World at One, in
which he called for greater public recognition of some aspects
of sharia law, is entirely characteristic. It is the product of
deep thought; reasonable, thought-provoking, and in parts quite
astonishingly silly.  Let's start with the good bits, which will
almost certainly be ignored in a general howl of execration. He
wants no part of the crimes and follies which represent sharia
law in the public imagination: no stonings, no amputations; in
his own words: "Nobody in their right mind I think would want to
see in this country the kind of inhumanity [nor] the extreme
punishments, the attitudes to women ... that sometimes appears
to be associated with the practice of the law."  What he means
by sharia is something altogether more benign, and closer to the
kind of ar