"Quaint" is often a diplomatic way of these guests saying that sometimes us Brits get rather hung up over our history and cling onto unnecessary traditions, which other countries (read America) get on allegedly better without. Being British, I'm usually, enigmatically (thus unlike a poodle - after all poodles do not have enough gray matter to be enigmatic) silent to these "quaint" remarks - though often itching to respond with something like "if you count Chinese bicycles, there are more road users on this planet who drive on the left than the right".

To the outsider, Britain is undoubtedly peculiar at times. Citizens of few countries are forced to pay for a license before being allowed to watch television. Or choose to put little, knitted coats called "cosies" on their (often beloved) teapots to keep them warm. A billion in the US is a thousand million, while in Britain a billion is a thousand times that amount - a good excuse for why there are considerably more US billion dollar industries than there are UK billion pound ones. When asked by a girl in London if you have a "rubber", you must refrain from nodding excitedly and reaching for the inner sanctum of your wallet - for she's actually asking if you have an eraser she can borrow. In the British song 'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag' the line 'as long as you have a Lucifer to light your fag' is not a fundamentalist Christian proclamation that all homosexuals will smolder for eternity in hellfire - as fags are cigarettes over here.

British laws can be "quaint" too, ranging from country to country within the Union. This is hardly surprising as many years for quaint legislative opportunity have passed since the Magna Carta Libertartum was issued in 1215.

Us Limeys are not alone in our eccentric law-making. Our American cousins have been just as - if not more - imaginative and fastidious as law-makers:

For in Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle. In Connecticut you are not allowed to walk across a street on your hands. In Florida if an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle, and it is illegal to sing in a public place while attired in a swimsuit. The unfortunate men of Florida may not be seen publicly in any kind of strapless gown. In Illinois it is illegal for anyone to give lighted cigars to dogs, cats, and other domesticated animals kept as pets. In Iowa kisses may last for as much as, but no more than, five minutes (presumably one breathes through one's nose). In Louisiana it is illegal to rob a bank and then shoot at the bank teller with a water pistol - while biting someone with your natural teeth is "simple assault," yet biting someone with your false teeth is "aggravated assault." In Massachusetts snoring is prohibited unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked. In Nebraska a parent can be arrested if his child cannot hold back a burp during a church service. In New Mexico, females are strictly forbidden to appear unshaven in public. In Oklahoma violators can be fined, arrested or jailed for making ugly faces at a dog. In Texas it is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. In Washington a law to reduce crime states: "It is mandatory for a motorist with criminal intentions to stop at the city limits and telephone the chief of police as he is entering the town". Meanwhile, in West Virginia, no children may attend school with their breath smelling of wild onions.

In truth, while Americans may accuse Brits of "quaintness" over some of their laws, and Brits may call Americans "a few tiles short of a roof" for some of theirs, most of these trivial laws are not used nowadays and very few law enforcers would ever have heard of them, let alone inflict them upon us - though trivial laws are being made daily in the free world just as quickly as outdated laws are being removed.

Times have changed - they always do. Many old laws have become obsolete in this twenty first century Internet age in Britain and America, as elsewhere in the free world. The Magna Carta still reads well but more as a historical document than as a modern legislative resource. Laws should be open to analysis, modernising, research and criticism after all.

While we can chuckle at cultural and legal differences, or, at worst, get annoyed by them, at least we are free to live as we want, generally say what we want, while respecting each other as equal human beings - or we will fall foul of laws thought through and put in place to stop us behaving anti socially, to stop us treating our peers with contempt, to prevent us from a return to barbarism, despotism and the environment of likely genocide.

But imagine what life would be like for us if we had to live by the letter of every law conceived - even if the law was written a thousand years ago at a time when Colgate-Palmolive didn't exist and the average human's breath would have reeked of things far worse than wild onions. Imagine if we today had to be judged by men who thought they were the infallible deviners of divine justice and always had the last word - presumed, living bush-telegraphs of our maker's command whose word was definitive law.

Imagine oneself back in the Dark Ages as a depraved lawmaker, looking to sow more fear and insecurity into and already fearful, superstitious society. What laws could one possibly come up with to make existence even darker and life even more insufferable, especially for women? How about the following?:

If you are married and commit adultery, stones will be thrown at you until you die. If you steal you will have your hands or feet amputated. If you get fed up with your wife, address her - let's say three times - "I divorce you" and your marriage will be over (only possible if you are a man - if you are a woman face an all-male court). If you're married and engage in homosexuality you must die by stoning - if unmarried you must receive one hundred lashes. If you don't believe in our way, you must pay a non-believer tax to us, set by us. Women must not show their ankles in public - far too sexy. Men must not show their thighs in public - after all, women and homosexuals wouldn't be able to cope with the temptation. For good measure, you cannot draw whatever you want in public or private. Likewise, non-believers - don't store any weapons in your homes or you will face the executioner. Let's describe all our laws as infallible as they are sent to us by our maker.

Laws too vicious and inhuman, surely? Too medieval and barbaric for the 10th, let alone the 21st Century? Peoples would rise up against such oppression and squash these cowardly, misogynist efforts at law-making? The civilised world today could not generate enough of the savage law enforcers who would be required to implement these outdated laws, surely?

Think again.

Take the example of Atefah Sahaaleh who, on the 15 August, 2004, was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka. Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity". At the time, the state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old. But she was not married - and she was just 16. In a town like Neka, under the close control of religious authorities, Atefah - often seen drifting around on her own - was noticeable. She soon came to the attention of the "moral police", a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose role it is to enforce the Islamic code of behaviour on Iran's streets.

There is no court transcript available from Atefah's trial, but it is known that for the first time, Atefah confessed to the secret of her sexual abuse by Ali Darabi, a former revolutionary guard. A married man with children, 51-year-old Ali Darabi raped her several times. Rape is very hard to prove in an Iranian court where a man's word is accepted much more easily than a woman's. When Atefah realised her case was doomed to failure, she screamed at the judge and threw her veil to the floor in protest. This proved a fatal outburst. She was sentenced to execution by hanging, while Darabi received only 95 lashes. A short while before the execution, unbeknown to her family, documents that went to the Iranian Supreme Court of Appeal described Atefah as being 22 years of age, qualifying her for the death penalty. Neither the judge nor even Atefah's court-appointed lawyer did anything to discover her correct age. The judge merely looked at her and declared she was 22. Judge Haji Rezai took Atefah's documents to the Supreme Court himself. And at six o'clock on the morning of her execution he personally put the noose around her neck, before she was hoisted on a crane to her death (hanging by crane lasts longer than other forms of hanging).

Since the Iranian revolution, Shariah law has been Iran's highest legal authority. The human rights organisation Amnesty International says it is concerned that executions are becoming more common again under President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, who advocates a return to the pure values of the revolution.

Of course, Shariah law is the instrument by which political Islam seeks to control the world. It is a system of law and governance not up for debate by the law enforcers of an intended caliphate. Political Islamists - like caliphate-seeking Hizb ut Tahrir - have constitutions borne of Shariah law full of the hellish legislative imaginings above. The understanding of the Shariah's details by humans (known as "fiqh") is the exclusivity of the caliphate's Muslim scholars - you have no choice but to follow these laws living in (a better preposition would be "under") the caliphate.

Of course, the Shariah should be open to analysis, research and criticism like any other system of law, practice and belief. Its "divine inspiration" should no more safeguard it from censure than Christianity should have been spared criticism for burning heretics or massacring unbelievers. The more harmful interpretations of the Shariah today fall far short of the minimum standards of justice widely demanded by the international community and by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The Shariah should be opposed for its imposition of theocracy over democracy, its abuse of human rights, its institutionalised discrimination, its denial of human dignity and individual autonomy, its punishment of alternative lifestyle choices, and for the severity of its punishments. In the West, in countries that have a sizeable Muslim population, there have been calls for the Shariah to be taken up by the Muslim community. These calls should be robustly opposed; the Shariah conflicts with many basic human values, such as equality before the law, that the law must be based on the will of the people and that punishments should be proportionate to the felony.

The Shariah as it emerged in the first few centuries of Islam integrated many pre-Islamic Middle-Eastern misogynist and tribal customs and traditions. The Shariah mirrors the economic and social conditions at the time of the Abbasids and has turned out to be further and further out of touch with later cultural, economic, social, technological - and not to mention moral - developments. The principles of the Shariah are opposed to moral progress, humanity and civilised values.

The quandary for Muslims now is how to oppose the violations of human rights inbuilt in the Shariah without being charged with apostasy or blasphemy by Flintstone political Islamists. For non-Muslims who want to assist, the trouble is how to circumvent accusations of cultural imperialism, neocolonialism and racial discrimination. Certainly, cultural relativism is not the answer - even within the bounds of "multiculturalism". Why not? Because justice begs for secularism. For a lasting society. One law for all - equality before the law - for Muslims and non-Muslims, for men and women alike, is unquestionably the answer. The political Islamists will of course hate this - as they are gradually defeated over the next fifty years, they will have to shape up or ship out.

Just because a law exists within a body of law does not mean that it cannot be changed - shaped to be relevant to the modern world. London Hackney Carriages no longer need to carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats - they have been modernised and are far more progressive, efficient vehicles. Likewise, laws which have had their significance made irrelevant by time should be completely ignored by a level-headed, common consensus - let your ankles see the sunshine, ladies. Of course, we should be sensitive to cultural differences and it is always helpful to learn to know our rubbers from our erasers to avoid calamity and escape causing offence.

The idée fixe of theocratic law has always been the recipe for a miserable and narrow, if not a brutal, bloody and inevitably botched tyranny. Let no nation on this earth succumb to it (the Irans and Somalias of this world must now rise up and escape from it) or let the fifth columns of political Islamists, either overtly or by stealth, get anywhere near positions of power.

Atefah - the day you threw down your veil in disgust will be remembered. Your misogynist judges live in shame - they are pathetic wretches hiding behind cowardly laws. Rest in peace knowing your death will not have been in vain.

Dominic Whiteman is spokesperson for the London-based VIGIL anti-terrorist organization - an international network of terror trackers, including former intelligence officers, military personnel and experts ranging from linguistic to banking experts.

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