Which face of Islam do we regard?

Every so often, like on Wednesday this week, I hear Muslim speakers making a good case for Islamic tolerance and that I as a Christian would have nothing to fear in a properly run shariah system. But when I do so, I can't quiet throw off the feeling that the theory and practice are so far apart that it is hard to trust the theory since it does not seem to have built in safeguards against abuse. The kind of thing that worries me is laid out in this report:

"It is clear that a country's policy of discrimination is one of the most central factors in harming those of a different faith... Whoever follows the words of the senior [Egyptian] officials discovers that they ceaselessly boast about the rules [set out in Koran 9:29] that oblige the ahl al-dhimma to pay jizya [poll tax] 'with willing submission,' and that they never stop praising the contracts that restrict non-Muslims in the areas of housing, external appearance, performance of their religious rituals, and upkeep of their houses of worship. It is no wonder, then, that the laws setting out worship continue to be handled as was customary hundreds of years ago

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Islam is bad. There are many good things in it [e.g. I respond warmly to its monotheism, seriousness about lifestyle, the challenge to monetary systems implied by the refusal of riba (usury) and the solidarity] and many good people. I recognise that I live in a glass house in the sense that there are things in Christian history and even current practice that justifiably scare and horrify onlookers. It is also worth noticing that the report is produced by a Muslim woman on behalf of a Christian-Muslim research group. I know too that the argument of our speaker on Wednesday is likely to be that Egypt is not an Islamic regime and so its behaviour should not be held against Islam per se.

And yet there are discriminatory laws in shariah, as the quote above shows. I think that we need to know that there is the capability in jurisprudence and interpretation to modify shariah to more equality and respect in fact towards religious minorities and others. Could there be a time in which shariah could allow women's testimony in law to be equal to that of a man? Or allow someone from a muslim family to become a Christian without penalty and in fact protect that person's life, goods and health in the face of potential hostility from former co-religionists? I suspect that the traditional hermeneutics and methodologies say 'no'. I would love to have that suspicion proved wrong.
MEMRI:
Filed in: Egypt, Copts, Islam, Christian, dhimmi, jizya