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And look at the kind of reactions it antagonizes in Muslims- hating the very idea of 'Shariah'

The majority of Muslims feel about the Shariah as Americans feel about the Constitution of the United States. Present day Muslim opposition to Westernization nearly always takes the form of a desire for the Shariah. It is, in the first instance, the wish that an historical disadvantage be removed. It must be admitted however that most Muslims do not like or have no interest to live under the harshness of old-style, ossified Islamic law- certainly not under the Shariah as it has been practised in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. It is not a particular application of Shariah but Shariah itself, the very idea of a layer of Law with constitutional force, that they seek. And therefore an entirely different conception of government.

Thereafter comes the difficulties of reconfiguring the values and principles of Quranic Law to the realities of modernism a constant fight which is and ought to be on-going in a living civilization and that cannot be avoided in any case. This would comprise of a uniquely Islamic path to modernity which - as all the evidence demonstrates is what nearly two hundred years of violence and bloodshed overwhelmingly indicates - is what Muslims want - their own way, their own choice.

Muslims can confidently believe in the humanity, wisdom and greatness of their own tradition, which tradition has expressed its social and political genius throughout its whole history. The task at hand is to support Muslim scholars who seek to recover our heritage of intellectual production, open debate, and inquiry, and to renew the constant development of the Law which once characterized the religion of Islam, and which can and is also essential to characterize Islam in a modern world.