celebrates Sharia introduction

Thousands of Muslims have converged on the northern Nigerian state of Jigawa to celebrate the formal adoption of Sharia or Islamic law.

The authorities -- anxious to avoid intimidating Jigawa's Christian minority -- had urged people to stay at home.

But the BBC Correspondent in Nigeria says this was largely ignored.

Jigawa is the sixth province in Nigeria to adopt the Islamic legal code which includes punishments such as amputation and flogging.

The spread of Sharia has been welcomed by Muslims as a way of solving political and social problems, but it's been heavily criticised by Christians.

So far this year more than a-thousand people have been killed in clashes over the imposition of Sharia.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service