Why Shariah?

MoJ-ers will be interested in Noah Feldman's new essay.  An excerpt:

[T]oday’s Muslims are not being completely fanciful when they act and speak as though Shariah can structure a constitutional state subject to the rule of law. One big reason that Islamist political parties do so well running on a Shariah platform is that their constituents recognize that Shariah once augured a balanced state in which legal rights were respected.