f sharia in Nigeria. Sharia enforcement has been steadily implemented since 2000 by state governments in Nigeria’s 12 northern states in defiance of the country’s secular federal constitution. It is estimated that 63% of the population of these states are Muslims, with the remainder being Christians and adherents of African Traditional Religions. The effective appeasement of these unconstitutional acts by a lack of effective action from the federal government has empowered radical Islamists such as the terrorist group Boko Haram whose declared aim is to make Nigeria a fully Islamic state with sharia enforced across all states . Boko Haram is seeking to extend sharia to the 7 states of Nigeria’s middle belt (roughly 55% Christian, 30% Muslim and 15% African traditional religions). Once that has been achieved a majority of states then will have implemented sharia enforcement. Islamists have indicated that they then plan to challenge Nigeria’s secular status and declare a fully Islamic state and with sharia also enforced in the 17 southern states (75% Christian, 20% African Traditional Religions and only 5% Muslim). These attacks by Boko Haram have been increasing over the last two years, but increased very significantly after the election of Christian president in April 2011 (sharia dictates that only Muslims are allowed to be head of state and only Muslims may be part of the government). The Christmas day attacks on churches were not the first this year. For example, two churches were bombed in Sileja in Niger state in the North Nigeria on 10th and 11th July with 3 Christians being killed. The targeting of churches is significant as sharia also dictates that new church buildings cannot be built.
In this highly combustible situation this year the Muslim governor of the Central bank of Nigeria published plans for the introduction of sharia banking. Sharia finance is a very recent newcomer on the financial scene even being avoided by the majority of banks in Saudi Arabia as recently as 2005. Other Islamic countries such as Oman still resist legalising it as they recognise it as part of the Islamist agenda to subject increasing areas of society to the Islamic clerics who act as sharia judges. The latter is unfortunately a lesson Gordon Brown as Chancellor and Prime Minister failed to heed when he naively legalised sharia finance in the UK.
In Senegal in June 2011 eight churches were looted and burnt to the ground in the capital Dhaka as extremists issued a ‘declaration of war’ against “new churches” being built in the city, sharia as we noted forbids the building of church buildings.
In Indonesia in September a suicide bomber blew himself up as a congregation were leaving a church service in Solo, Central Java. Islamists have been waging a violent campaign in Indonesia to eradicate Christianity from Indonesia and enforce sharia on the entire country.
These brief examples do not include many countries such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen where sharia is already enforced. These are simply a snapshot of some of the countries where the Islamist agenda of sharia enforcement has advanced in the last 12 months. The list is by no means comprehensive – in the past year Islamists have also for example launched violent attacks on churches and Christians in Ethiopia (69 churches and a Bible college burnt down, 3 Christians killed and an estimated 10,000 made homeless); In Somalia where a Christian was beheaded by the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab- beheading being a sharia punishment favoured by Islamists, similarly a Christian was also beheaded in Afghanistan by Islamist terrorists; In Kenya Islamists are targeting Christians in the predominantly Muslim North, with al-Shabab launching a grenade attack on a church, one could go on…
The ideology of sharia
What is happening is not a random unconnected series of events. They have historical precedent in the medieval interpretations of Islam that are termed classical Islam, which envisions the enforcement of Islamic government and sharia, if necessary by means of force, on Muslim and non Musli