Reply #18: Actually, Sir, Under Common Law, Blasphemy Was A Serious Offense, Punishable By life Inprisonment

[The Magistrate]

Severe penalties fell out of favor by the eighteenth century, but there were imprisonments for blasphemy in England in the twentieth century, and the law did not come off the books until quite recently there.

If Common Law were stll being enforced at the medieval standard Sharia is enforced at in Saudi Arabia, there would be little detectable diofference in outcome.

The difference is in the modernity of the practice, not at the root of the tradition.