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.
In early 2017, Qatar's total population was 2.6 million: 313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates. Qatar is a high-income economy, backed by the world's third-largest natural-gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world.