Sharia

A church and a mosque were set ablaze in Nigeria's northeastern Gombe state as riots broke out over a move there to introduce the strict Muslim Sharia law code, state officials said Wednesday. Gombe state spokesman Yahya Abubakar said a demonstration organized by Christian groups protesting two bills being debated in the state assembly on the introduction of Sharia in the state turned violent Monday in the town of Kumo.

He fell in love with his first wife because she was sincere and eager to please. His second wife, a cousin, was irresistible because she did everything he wished and nothing he didn't. "That alone made me love her. " His third wife won him because she submitted to his every request. "I saw her, I liked her. I went to her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. " Wife No. 4 was very obedient. So was wife No. 5. Wife No. 6, the same. As were wives 7 and 8 and 9 and … Well, by then — it was the late 1980s — things had taken off for Bello Maasaba, an Islamic faith healer in this city in Niger state.

As fighting between Christians and Muslims spreads to Nigeria's southeast, the government and leaders from the mostly Muslim north agreed to back away from calls for Islamic law in an effort to end the bloodshed that has wracked Nigeria for a week.

An Islamic court in Nigeria postponed the appeal of a woman condemned to death by stoning for having sex outside marriage. A Sharia Appeals Court registrar said Amina Lawal's case was deferred until Aug. 27 because two of the panel's four judges would be unavailable until then.

A Lebanese mother and her child who fled to Britain to avoid being separated under their country's Islamic law should be allowed to remain, Britain's highest court ruled. The divorced woman, identified only as EM, told immigration officials her allegedly abusive ex-husband would gain custody of their child under Lebanon's Sharia law. Although religious laws are not applied in Lebanon's criminal code, Sharia does apply to Lebanese Muslims on civil issues such as marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance.

An Islamic court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a pregnant woman to death by stoning for having premarital sex, court officials said. Safiya Hussaini Tungar Dudu, 30, became the first person to be sentenced to death by a Sharia court in Sokoto state since it adopted the strict Muslim legal code last year. Sharia Court Judge Mohammed Bello Sanyinnawal sentenced the woman to death Thursday after she pleaded guilty to having sex without being married.

Four Nigerians convicted of murdering a woman whose home they broke into were beheaded Friday in Mecca, the Interior Ministry announced. Nearly 50 convicted murderers, rapists and drug traffickers have been beheaded under Islamic law, or Sharia, this year, usually in public squares after Friday's Muslim Sabbath prayers.

Saudi Arabia on Monday beheaded five people, including a woman found guilty of running a brothel, the Interior Ministry said. Beheadings of convicted rapists, murderers, drug smugglers and other criminals, in line with Islamic Sharia law enforced in the conservative kingdom, are often carried out in a public square.

Two brothers convicted of murder have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia after spending the past 19 years in jail, local newspapers reported Friday. The brothers were jailed until the son of the man they killed came of age to decide if he wanted compensation or execution under the strict rules of Sharia (Islamic law).

Face down before a crowd, the teenage girl shrieks and writhes, begging for mercy. But the three masked men holding her down merely tighten their grip while a fourth man whips her again and again. The video of a 17-year-old girl being publicly flogged by the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat Valley has galvanized the nation, drawing protests from human rights groups, denunciations from the central government and expressions of revulsion from many Pakistanis.