Women's rights are back in focus as Iran's national soccer team prepares for the World Cup. They were never that far away.

Anti-government protests have engulfed the Islamic Republic following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for allegedly wearing a mandatory headscarf too loosely.

Players on the men's team that will face England, Wales and the United States next month in Qatar have voiced their support for Iranian women's rights, despite some initial hesitancy.

Back in January, Iran made headlines not only by beating Iraq 1-0 to qualify for its third straight World Cup but also because 2,000 women were allowed to attend the game at Azadi Stadium in Tehran. Two months later, though, women were blocked from attending another match and reportedly were pepper-sprayed.

Women typically have been prohibited from attending men’s games and other sports events in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. A rights group has called on FIFA to expel Iran from the tournament in Qatar.

Security forces have violently suppressed recent protests. Mehdi Taremi, the striker who scored in the victory over Iraq, wrote on Instagram of being “ashamed” to see videos from Iran of violence against women in the streets.

ON THE FIELD

The Iranians have a tough first game — against England on Nov. 21. They face Wales four days later before another showdown with the United States. That last group game — besides being politically charged — could be critical for both teams to advance.

Iran took note of some headlines in Britain after the draw was announced. One tabloid declared that England got a “dream World Cup draw” against Iran — and the United States.

“It is exactly the same feeling that I have — thank God that we are playing against England,” Iran coach Carlos Queiroz said after being rehired in early September. “We like to play against the best teams in the world. England is one of the best teams in Europe — Iran one of the best teams in Asia, so that’s why we’re here, to play great games.”

Iran has never advanced out of the first round. It has played in five previous World Cups, having debuted in 1978.

IRAN vs. USA

Iran beat the United States 2-1 at the 1998 World Cup in France in one of the more memorable games in tournament history — mainly because of the political backdrop.

The United States hasn't had formal diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980 following the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students who held hostages for 444 days.

The day before the game in Lyon, the Iranian team received instructions to not shake hands with the American players. Instead, in a show of sportsmanship by both sides, the teams gathered before kickoff for a group photo.

Hamid Estili and Mehdi Mahdavikia scored before Brian McBride netted late for the United States in Iran's first-ever World Cup victory. Neither team advanced out of the group. The teams played a friendly two years later at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

ON WATCH

The 30-year-old Taremi is peaking at the right time. He scored twice for Porto in a 3-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen one week after setting up both goals in a 2-0 victory over the German club in the Champions League.

Queiroz likely will be without forward Sardar Azmoun, who tore a calf muscle in early October while warming up for Leverkusen. The Bundesliga club said the 27-year-old Azmoun was expected to miss six to eight weeks. Azmoun has 41 goals in 65 appearances for Iran.

Alireza Beiranvand saved a penalty against Cristiano Ronaldo in a 1-1 draw with Portugal at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

In recent friendlies, Iran beat Uruguay 1-0 and drew 1-1 with Senegal in Austria.

Q FACTOR

Queiroz was rehired as Iran coach in early September to replace Dragan Skocic. This will be Queiroz's fourth World Cup. He led Iran in 2014 and 2018 and coached his native Portugal in 2010. He became available after failing to lead Egypt to this year’s tournament.

Queiroz has used a variety of formations and is defensively minded.

“We're going to play against some of the best players in the world," Queiroz said, "but we’re going to be ready for them.”

Warning that Islamic extremists want to impose fundamentalist religious rule in American communities, right-wing lawmakers in dozens of U.S. states have tried banning Sharia, an Arabic term often understood to mean Islamic law.

These political debates – which cite terrorism and political violence in the Middle East to argue that Islam is incompatible with modern society – reinforce stereotypes that the Muslim world is uncivilized.

They also reflect ignorance of Sharia, which is not a strict legal code. Sharia means “path” or “way”: It is a broad set of values and ethical principles drawn from the Quran – Islam’s holy book – and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. As such, different people and governments may interpret Sharia differently.

Still, this is not the first time that the world has tried to figure out where Sharia fits into the global order.

The big debate

Invariably, my historical research shows, political leaders of these young countries chose to keep their colonial justice systems rather than impose religious law.

Newly independent Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, among other places, all confined the application of Sharia to marital and inheritance disputes within Muslim families, just as their colonial administrators had done. The remainder of their legal systems would continue to be based on European law.

To understand why they chose this course, I researched the decision-making process in Sudan, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from the British, in 1956.

In the national archives and libraries of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and in interviews with Sudanese lawyers and officials, I discovered that leading judges, politicians and intellectuals actually pushed for Sudan to become a democratic Islamic state.

They envisioned a progressive legal system consistent with Islamic faith principles, one where all citizens – irrespective of religion, race or ethnicity – could practice their religious beliefs freely and openly.

“The People are equal like the teeth of a comb,” wrote Sudan’s soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Hassan Muddathir in 1956, quoting the Prophet Muhammad, in an official memorandum I found archived in Khartoum’s Sudan Library. “An Arab is no better than a Persian, and the White is no better than the Black.”

Sudan’s post-colonial leadership, however, rejected those calls. They chose to keep the English common law tradition as the law of the land.

Why keep the laws of the oppressor?

My research identifies three reasons why early Sudan sidelined Sharia: politics, pragmatism and demography.

Rivalries between political parties in post-colonial Sudan led to parliamentary stalemate, which made it difficult to pass meaningful legislation. So Sudan simply maintained the colonial laws already on the books.

There were practical reasons for maintaining English common law, too.

Sudanese judges had been trained by British colonial officials. So they continued to apply English common law principles to the disputes they heard in their courtrooms.

Sudan’s founding fathers faced urgent challenges, such as creating the economy, establishing foreign trade and ending civil war. They felt it was simply not sensible to overhaul the rather smooth-running governance system in Khartoum.

The continued use of colonial law after independence also reflected Sudan’s ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.

Then, as now, Sudanese citizens spoke many languages and belonged to dozens of ethnic groups. At the time of Sudan’s independence, people practicing Sunni and Sufi traditions of Islam lived largely in northern Sudan. Christianity was an important faith in southern Sudan.

Sudan’s diversity of faith communities meant that maintaining a foreign legal system – English common law – was less controversial than choosing whose version of Sharia to adopt.

Why extremists triumphed

My research uncovers how today’s instability across the Middle East and North Africa is, in part, a consequence of these post-colonial decisions to reject Sharia.

In maintaining colonial legal systems, Sudan and other Muslim-majority countries that followed a similar path appeased Western world powers, which were pushing their former colonies toward secularism.

But they avoided resolving tough questions about religious identity and the law. That created a disconnect between the people and their governments.

In the long run, that disconnect helped fuel unrest among some citizens of deep faith, leading to sectarian calls to unite religion and the state once and for all. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and parts of Somalia and Nigeria, these interpretations triumphed, imposing extremist versions of Sharia over millions of people.

In other words, Muslim-majority countries stunted the democratic potential of Sharia by rejecting it as a mainstream legal concept in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving Sharia in the hands of extremists.

But there is no inherent tension between Sharia, human rights and the rule of law. Like any use of religion in politics, Sharia’s application depends on who is using it – and why.

Leaders of places like Saudi Arabia and Brunei have chosen to restrict women’s freedom and minority rights. But many scholars of Islam and grassroots organizations interpret Sharia as a flexible, rights-oriented and equality-minded ethical order.

Religion and the law worldwide

Religion is woven into the legal fabric of many post-colonial nations, with varying consequences for democracy and stability.

After its 1948 founding, Israel debated the role of Jewish law in Israeli society. Ultimately, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his allies opted for a mixed legal system that combined Jewish law with English common law.

In Latin America, the Catholicism imposed by Spanish conquistadors underpins laws restricting abortion, divorce and gay rights.

And throughout the 19th century, judges in the U.S. regularly invoked the legal maxim that “Christianity is part of the common law.” Legislators still routinely invoke their Christian faith when supporting or opposing a given law.

Political extremism and human rights abuses that occur in those places are rarely understood as inherent flaws of these religions.

When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, however, Sharia takes the blame for regressive laws – not the people who pass those policies in the name of religion.

Fundamentalism and violence, in other words, are a post-colonial problem – not a religious inevitability.

For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule. But building peace may demand it.