An Irish Islamic website which argues for the introduction of "Sharia" law in Ireland had nearly 270,000 hits last month alone.



The site is targeted at what it calls Irish "O'Muslims," the Muslim Public Affairs Council website, www.mpac.ie.



Sharia refers to the "way" Muslims should live or the "path" they must follow. Sharia is derived from the sacred text of Islam (the Koran) and traditions gathered from the life of the Islamic prophet Mohammed. Sharia deals with many aspects of life, including crime, politics, economics, banking, business, contracts, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues.



An editorial post says introducing Sharia is a patriotic duty.



"And who could doubt that establishing the authority of Allah in the land is in the best interests of Ireland?" it asks.



The site says it seeks "to remove injustice and establish fairness, to remove moral degradation, immorality and licentiousness and establish propriety, righteousness and restraint and to establish tawheed (the worship of the Only One worthy of worship) are surely noble Islamic aims."



In one article, entitled “21st Century Ireland - A man's world,” the author begs women to stick to one man and not dress provocatively.



"Instead of constantly trying to be better-looking than all the other girls in the club… instead of trying to impress a different bloke every weekend, is it not nicer to have that special someone," it asks. "Someone who will always think you're the best-looking girl… and that really doesn't want you wearing as little clothes as possible because it's not nice for you to be so cold. Is that not better?"



The website also described the recent crucifixion of a pedophile and murderer in Saudi Arabia as "justice."



MPAC spokesman Liam Egan, who goes by the Muslim name Mujaahid, said the independent website was not affiliated with the Irish Council of Imams or any other Muslim organization here and was run by a "volunteer group of indigenous Muslims".



"From a religious perspective we believe we represent a mainstream Islamic position... considering the specific content and its limited relevancy [a minority group in Ireland] we have witnessed an exponential rise in site hits, last month we had 269, 733," he told the Sunday Tribune.

