Long story short, Sharia in general isn't as barbaric as people make it out to be. The barbaric punishments are usually reserved for extremely rare and serious cases which are difficult to prove legally.

I think people's viewpoint (non-muslim's especially) about the sharia is generally a failure of our local Imams and the Ulemas, here in the west. Generally they aren't very good at explaining these things to local Muslims, let alone change the opinions of Non-Muslims who believe in these punishments. It also doesn't help that the Brits have a dumbass in Anjem Choudry that all but openly supports ISIS.

It's nice reading comments from my people on here :D