The slight, bearded 60-year-old has tried to impose on the areas of Malakand and Dir a system of Sharia law similar to that operated by the Taliban.
Aceh, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, is known for its draconian system of Sharia law.
The system of Sharia courts and government tribunals created by Abdul Aziz largely remained in place until the 2007 judiciary reforms (see below).
But it is important to begin by dispelling one or two myths about sharia; so far from being a monolithic system of detailed enactments, sharia designates primarily - to quote Ramadan again - 'the expression of the universal principles of Islam [and] the framework and the thinking that makes for their actualisation in human history' (32).
Like Isis, Saudi Arabia bases its legal system on an interpretation of Sharia law that punishes blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality and adultery with death, beheadings and stonings.
Its system, which incorporates elements of Sharia law, makes it illegal to drink alcohol in public or without a licence, swear, smoke e-cigarettes, import pork or pornography, be gay, have sex outside of marriage or even share a hotel room with a partner.
She could still face execution on a murder charge.Such cases reflect only one part of sharia: the system of corporal and capital punishments such as stoning for adultery, death for murder or apostasy (abandoning Islam), whipping for consuming intoxicants or the cutting off of a hand for theft.
Rather than making their new found discovery of faith a personal matter centered on their relationship with God, they have a tendency to start preaching about virtues of imposition of strict version of Sharia based system in legal, political as well as cultural spheres.
As a related American Civil Liberties Union report highlights, the proponents of so-called anti-sharia bans have failed to demonstrate a single case of sharia overtaking our judicial system.
The Acehnese government, for example, has the right to create certain elements of an independent legal system; in 2003, it instituted a form of Sharia Law (Islamic law).
As the clergy sets up a system of Islamic court and introduces sharia law, Woollacott reports on efforts by fearful lawyers to organise themselves.
