Because of the religious origin of the word, some prefer to capitalize it and others not. The word sharia means  the path  or  the path to wate r. Sharia as a source of law, is, by definition, arbitrary and discretionary-some would prefer to describe it as flexible.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW. LOCATION AND SIZE. Qatar is a tiny peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf and bordering only Saudi Arabia. With an area of 11,437 square kilometers (4,416 square miles) and a short coastline of 563 kilometers (345 miles), Qatar is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut.
The length, bordering the Red Sea, is approximately 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometres) and the maximum breadth, from Yemen to Oman, 1,300 miles. The largest political division is Saudi Arabia; it is followed, in order of size, by Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. The island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles southeast of the mainland, has strong ethnographic links to Arabia; politically it is part of Yemen.