The second gap between theory and practice relates to the place of Islamic law-or sharia-in the political life of Muslim states. The sharia tends to make the news in the West only when someone has been sentenced to have their hand cut off for stealing or to be stoned to death for committing adultery. The result is a narrow and misleading conception of how it works. In fact, Islamic law is deep and sophisticated, with its own system of courts, legal experts, and judges and its own long tradition of jurisprudence. At the same time, however, while the use of Islamic law in one of the ideals of an Islamic states, the sharia is not universally applied in any Islamic county. It is widely used in Iran, Jordan, Liberia, Mauritania, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, but the majority of Islamic countries use a mix of Western civil law and Islamic religious law, turning to the former for serious crime and to the latter for family issues.