Sharia law is practiced mainly in Saudi Arabia. As for "much of the region", it happens to be the place where civilization was born (Egypt and Iraq). The region also happens to be the location where three great religions were founded.

As for barbaric, World War One and Two killed over 100 million people in Europe in the last 100 years. Is that less barbaric than stoning? 7000 Bosnian Muslims were killed by Serbian Christians about twenty years ago. Isn't that barbaric? If you account for genocide, Europe leads the Middle East by a mile.