Sublime

So then, when it comes to incorporating the Shariah into its legal systems, a modern Islamic state has only three options. It can fully apply a Traditionalist understanding of Shariah to the state with no attempt either to modernize it or adapt it to contemporary norms of law and society, as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban have done.

In Britain there’s a law that says that in an emergency, you can break some rules—you don’t get charged with trespassing, for example, if you break into a burning building to save people. Ben and his legal team argued that this was an emergency: they were trying to prevent the planet from being set on fire. Twelve ordinary British jurors considered

In any case, they had very few good choices in the face of the powerful triad of Britain, the Zionist movement, and the League of Nations Mandate. Moreover, they had no serious allies, besides the support of amorphous, inchoate Arab public opinion, which was solidly behind them even before 1914 but all the more so as the interwar period wore on.

Law—a law that treats everyone equally, rich and poor, nativeborn and stranger—is the institutional embodiment of collective as opposed to individual freedom.