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Islam unlike Christianity and Judaism is retrogressing. Once upon a time Islamic cultures were the advanced(comparatively speaking) ones and Christian Europe was still trying to recover from the loss of Rome. Nowadays, it is Islam that embodies superstition and intolerance towards other views. So yes, it is definitely behind the times.
No No No No No No And No!!!!!!
It's not that Islam is backwards. It's that Muslims did the fatal mistake any people could do, they allowed the religious fundamentalists to rise in political power. This is due to the fact that Persian and Arabic civilizations has always been oppressive. They had active slavery until the early 20s in most Middle eastern countries, and slavery is still prevalent is modern muslim African nations.
This injustice led to the rise of political religious groups who exploited this societal chink to progress their own agenda. The religious conservatives have promised the upholding of religious laws, and equality as taught by the prophet. Most people of the lower class (which constitutes a large percentage of the arab and persian populations) were happy to embrace these religious exploiters, as recently as the 2006 Hamas election campaign.
Of course, not all countries have allowed this to happen. Dubai, a shining beacon on Arab progression has remained a dictatorship, with a very liberal leadership that does not uphold muslim law, but rather more westernized quasi-constitutional law based on tradition (albeit how our constitution and laws are based on OUR traditions).
Egypt is a good example of why Muslim extremism has manifested so deep in that part of the world. Power, wealth and politics go hand in hand, and the rich business-men are considered untouchable and can literally get away murder. This causes resentment amongst the lower classes. I don't need to continue most reading are intelligent to connect the dots from here. A link below is an example of Business men in Egypt almost getting away with cold blooded murder.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/09/ ... newssearchNow, this brings us back to the topic of UK public justice institutions allowing Muslims to implement some form of Sharia law amongst their own constituents. This is wrong. Mixing religion with public institutions is a slippery slope to a cold dark place Europe just emerged from (dark ages). It took 400 years to undo the damage the Christian Church did after the fall of the Roman Empire. Why jump back?
That being said, religion has made a resurgence with a vengeance.
Whether it is British Arch-bishops giving a thumbs up for sharia law, leaders of certain nations calling on others to be wiped out as per the scriptures, or white supremacist bible thumping fetus worshiping puppets like Hawcker, they are all as dangerous as each other. If either idea were given the chance to rise to power, it would be disastrous, as with nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or dark ages Europe.
Religion and our public institutions should be kept apart. Europe was not scientifically more advanced because people with less skin pigmentation are genetically somehow more superior, it is because they adopted a great system of governance and free speech, philosophy, science and criticism, all of which go hand in hand.
Junior Member 
. I don't personally feel that Muslim women share that sense of empowerment and if Sharia is given the same standing as common law I would be afraid that it would lead to an erosion of their rights and freedoms. 
(20%) 
