There are a handful of points critics of Shari’ah always obsess upon. For example, the stoning of adulterers, the execution of apostates, and homosexuality being a capital offense. On the basis of these rulings, they discredit the entire system of law and the religion as a whole…and that seems rational to them.
Well, the US Constitution labeled Black men as three-fourths human. Edward Snowden is eligible for the death penalty under America’s laws on treason (which is essentially the apostasy of nationalism). Indeed, in the US, children and the mentally handicapped can be executed. I disagree with these positions, but I do not cast aside the entire legal structure on this basis; to me, that would not be rational.
If you want to talk about the specific rulings you have a problem with, we can do that. But to just raise these rulings as evidence of why Shari’ah is brutal and repressive, no; that is a phony argument. They do not want to have a discussion, however. What they do is highlight these rulings then require us to disavow them; if we disavow them, then we are cornered into disavowing the Qur’an and Hadiths, and we are corralled into disavowing the religion as a whole.
They do not want to talk about the centuries of brilliant legal scholarship that has explored these, and countless other controversial rulings. They are interested in the simplest, most superficial perusal of these topics, and the most ignorant self-proclaimed practitioners of Islamic law, like ISIS. And they want to point to Western-backed tyrannies in the Muslim world who impose their oppressive policies…largely identical to the oppressive policies of Western-backed tyrannies in the non-Muslim world, by the way…because those dictators wrap their repression in Islamic rhetoric instead of nationalistic or democratic rhetoric.
But Islamic law, like any legal tradition, is intricate and complex, with multiple interpretations, and a rich history of academic exploration. If you want to point to an ayah or a hadith, and then to the way ISIS understands it, for example, to prove your argument, then you are simply not a serious person, and you are not actually eligible to discuss this subject.
Among the rulings they like to denounce, for instance, you will not find anything significantly different in Judaic law; but no one pretends expertise on the Talmud and the Torah just because they own a copy of the 5 books of Moses and a highlighter pen. This is because, quite simply, Rabbinical scholarship is acknowledged and respected, while Islamic Fuqaha are not similarly regarded. That is pure bias. You cannot claim that the reason this is not discussed is because no one is seeking to implement Judaic law, so it is not an issue. Israel is officially a Jewish state, yet its brutality is never laid at the feet of the Talmud. Jewish settlers are often ultra-orthodox, and regularly rationalize their violence by means of Jewish scripture. But everyone recognizes that they are not genuine representatives of Judaic law.
So yes, if you want to have a real discussion, let’s have it. We can talk about why the rulings exist, and also why those particular rulings have almost never been implemented in Islamic history, and about how the scholars have explained these matters; including how we deal with mitigating circumstances, and procedures of evidence and so forth. But if you just want to say “that is a bad rule….admit it”, no one is obliged to take you seriously.