CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Pakistan's recent deal with the Taliban allowing Sharia (Islamic) law in the Swat Valley, about 80 miles from the capital of Islamabad, is becoming an increasingly typical phenomenon.

Somalia just announced the adoption of Sharia law as its national legal system, pending ratification by the parliament.

The move was designed to appease Islamic groups in the country, who have ruled the streets for nearly two decades, where thousands of Somalians have been killed and today, pirates control the coastline.

The new government, under Prime Minister Umar Abdi Rashid Ali Sharamke, hopes that Sharia law will help restore some kind of "normalcy" to the beleaguered nation.

Meanwhile, Sharia continues making headway in Europe.

In France, a court granted an annulment to a Muslim man who claimed his bride wasn't a virgin.

In Denmark, imams (Islamic religious leaders) have sentenced disobedient Muslims according to Sharia law, effectively bypassing the Danish legal system.

In Britain, nearly 40 percent of the Muslim population is lobbying for the implementation of Sharia law.

Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said that adopting Sharia law "seems unavoidable" because Muslims don't relate to the British legal system.

According to Williams, adopting Sharia law would strengthen the nation's social cohesion.

In Switzerland, an anthropology professor at Fribourg University said adoption of Sharia law would smooth out multicultural issues.

Italy's Supreme Court recently acquitted the parents and eldest brother who had "brutally beaten" a teenage daughter for dating a non-Muslim, ruling that she had been beaten "for her own good."

According to a Muslim women's organization in Italy, at least nine women have been the victims of honor killings and girls as young as eight are being forced to wear the hijab (black robe).

Source: The Jerusalem Post