8 ms·

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know,

by kloncks 16y ago

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles: 1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources). 6. The right to the protection of human dignity. That's it. At its base, eerily similar to the bill of rights. The term "shariah law" is a misnomer, because shariah is not law, but a set of principles. Controversial laws like stoning people or requiring women to be totally covered aren't in the Sharia. Those are custom interpretations by certain sects. That's why say Islamic-based laws in Saudi Arabia are radically different from those in Egypt. Just thought I'd share that. It really irked me this summer when everyone was throwing around arguments against "infecting the constitution with Sharia" even though no one actually knows what Sharia is.

MartinCron 16y ago
Thanks for sharing this, I'll no longer use "Sharia" as a denigrating term, as I probably have in the past.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Is this at all representative of the way sharia exists in practice? Can you provide, say, 5 examples of Islamic countries practicing sharia according to this strict interpretation that aren't overwhelmed by the influence of religous and ethnic traditionalism? If not then aren't you just arguing semantics? If the way sharia is practiced conforms to a certain well delineated set of patterns and that differs from some ideal definition of sharia which is the correct definition?
- billybob 16y ago
  I disagree. If in fact, that's what the original text says, then I don't think it's just semantics to avoid slamming the original text. I think it's important to distinguish between a religion or ideal - say, Christianity, or democracy - and what people do under that name. If church X doesn't follow the clear teachings of Jesus, that doesn't reflect poorly on Jesus, but on church X. If nation Y has rigged elections, that doesn't reflect poorly on democracy, but on nation Y. It is important to be able to ask theoretical questions like "is capitalism inherently flawed?" and separate them from "how is it being practised in this situation?" If capitalism + government meddling = failure, it's unfair to say that capitalism failed. Rather, we should say that capitalism wasn't practiced. I think the poster is just asking for the same kind of logical distinction.
  - inklesspen 16y ago
    Sure, if one specific church is being heterodox, you can blame that on the church. And if it were one specific nation implementing shariah law as being all these nasty things, you could say it's just that nation. But what happens when _every_ nation that implements shariah law oppresses women, prohibits freedom of religion, and in general is a repressive society? 'Shariah' is a label. If all the nations that apply that label to their system have more or less the same repressive policies, it is not very helpful to say that none of them are correctly applying the label; the point is it's a label adopted by repressive societies.
    - borism 16y ago
      Perhaps you should educate yourself about moderate islamic countries?
      - inklesspen 16y ago
        Which would those be? Even the most moderate islamic countries are still way behind modern countries on the status of women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other such democratic values. Granted, many of them limit shariah law, such as in the case of Jordan, which limits it to "matters involving personal law such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody." But they still have it.
        borism 16y ago
        > Even the most moderate islamic countries are still way behind modern countries on the status of women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other such democratic values. I wouldn't say countries like UAE, Kuwait, Turkey and many Mediterranean islamic countries are way behind. It also helps that Western countries are eroding mentioned freedoms and values themselves. See for example burqa ban in France. Now that's what I call a country without a freedom of religion.
        16y ago
- azim 16y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding what is meant by Sharia. It is not a strict set of rules. Because of this, it is necessarily influenced by ethnic traditionalism. Now if you're looking for western countries which have Sharia courts, the United Kingdom and India are two which come to mind which allow certain civil disputes to be resolved in Sharia courts.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    For a Sharia court in the UK to have the power of law though the participants in the case all first have to agree to that though, otherwise they don't have a legal leg to stand on. So it is only after you've voluntarily agreed to be bound that the court can proceed.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    The UK also has Jewish courts. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm
- kloncks 16y ago
  If you look at most of the Middle East countries, there are a few good examples of countries that practice Islamic (NOT Sharia ;)) law. Egypt, my home country, has a nice mix of Islamic law and British martial law. Jordan's similar. So is Turkey. Keep in mind that there are four big schools of thought (and that's just in Sunni Islam). Saudi Arabia and the gulf conform to one of those, and it's traditionally more conservative.
js2 16y ago
...when everyone was throwing around arguments against "infecting the constitution with Sharia" even though no one actually knows what Sharia is. Sadly, quite a few of the people who are ignorant about what Sharia is are probably also ignorant about what is written in the US Constitution. We're equal opportunity ignorant here in the US. :(
- piguy314 16y ago
  Freedom of speech is NOT compatible with the protection of the Islamic faith from depicting or criticizing Mohamed, PERIOD. There is zero room for negotiation there. So in that context there is NO misunderstanding that the U.S. constitution and sharia are not compatible.
illumin8 16y ago
The problem, as it is with any religion, is in the way men interpret the scripture. For example, Biblical law, on which all western legal systems are based, is similarly barbaric. The laws of all western societies come from the law of Moses, which is simply the ten commandments. The difference between modern interpretations of the law and old testament interpretations is that in Moses' time, the penalty for breaking any of the ten commandments was death, pure and simple. Coveted your neighbors posessions? Death. Coveted your neighbors wife? Death. Prayed to an idol of some other god? Death. In most western societies our legal system has evolved to the point where we recognize that the punishment should fit the crime. The problem, as I see it, is that most modern muslim societies haven't progressed to this point yet. They still practice barbaric customs such as cutting the hands off of thieves, or public stonings. As a whole, humanity needs to denounce all barbaric punishments and legal systems, regardless of origin. The thing that is so ironic to me is that some of the same religious conservatives in the US that are speaking out against Sharia law, if you ask them, will tell you they want the US to go to a biblical law system. They are pretty much one and the same at that level.
- kloncks 16y ago
  I agree with most of your points, minus the phrase "most modern Muslim societies haven't progressed to this point". Yes, there's a fair share of the problems, but I can honestly just think of a few (3 or less) that truly practice the old barbaric stuff. Most, even though have other problems, have at least progressed away from that.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    Your point is well taken. Perhaps I should say "some modern Muslim societies." I should take care not to exaggerate this.
- ars 16y ago
  "Coveted your neighbors posessions? Death." That's not true. You really shouldn't just make things up to support an argument.
zeteo 16y ago
As far as I can tell, there is a wide variety in people's interpretation of Sharia. In practice Sharia's introduction has been recently associated with very harsh punishments (amputation, stoning): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Contemporary_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Contemporary_practice There are definitely lots of people who choose to view Sharia this way, and invariably this kind of interpretation seems to have prevailed in practical settings. So what makes your view of Sharia the One True Interpretation? Do you even have some references, from the relevant religious authorities, to the effect that these six principles you enumerate are all of Sharia and nothing else?
btilly 16y ago
What you say is true, but disingenuous. It is like saying that British common law is just adherence to the principle that judgments should be made in accordance with principles that were accepted in previous judgments, and it varies widely across different jurisdictions. This is true, but British common law means a lot more than just that. The same is true of Sharia law. It has a lot of baggage. And it doesn't always read as a Westerner might naively like to read it. In particular when it comes to Sharia law, opposition tends to center on items 2 and 4 on your list. On #2, Sharia law protects the family, but with different definitions and severity than Western society accepts. Consider the asymmetry between men and women for divorce. Consider the punishments for adultery. Both are widespread in Sharia law, and neither is palatable to Western audiences. More problematic is item 4. It is not (as it is in the US constitution) the protection of freedom of religion. Instead it is the protection of the Islamic religion. (With limited protections for peoples of the book.) Thus we get anti-blasphemy rules, punishment for converting Muslims to another faith, etc. This is in direct conflict with core precepts of the US Constitution. This is not an accident of interpretation. It is a central feature of having a system of law whose purpose is to support a specific religion.
- joelhaus 16y ago
  This is not an accident of interpretation. It's much less clear than this. Highly recommend watching this show: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/inside-the-koran-3466/Overview http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/inside-the-kor...
jacoblyles 16y ago
I feel the need to fact-check this. Wikipedia's explanation of Sharia is more complex than what you say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia. Perhaps you could share why you think Wikipedia is wrong? The article states: "Sharia (Arabic شريعة Šarīʿa; [ʃaˈriːʕa], "way" or "path") is the sacred law of Islam. Muslims believe Sharia is derived from two primary Sources of Islamic law; namely, the divine revelations set forth in the Qur'an, and the sayings and example set by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh ("jurisprudence") interprets and extends the application of Sharia to questions not directly addressed in the primary sources by including secondary sources. These secondary sources usually include the consensus of the religious scholars embodied in ijma, and analogy from the Qur'an and Sunnah through qiyas. Shia jurists replace qiyas analogy with 'aql, or "reason"." The article further explains that Sharia covers areas of life such as diet, dress code, sexuality, personal morality, and the punishments prescribed for crimes - the aspects of law in Islamic countries that Westerners view as harsh and sometimes barbaric. For example, punishing theft with hand amputation is part of Sharia. In five Islamic countries under Sharia law the crime of Sodomy is punishable by death. "Sharia" is no more a specific set of laws than Anglo-Saxon "Common Law". But it is a certain way of creating and judging law based on Islamic religious tradition that is incompatible with a modern secular state. So if I were to use the term "Sharia" to refer to a strict and expansive system of law based on the Muslim religion, I would be correct.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  "Perhaps you could share why you think Wikipedia is wrong? " Sharia is a topic of highly emotional argument right now, with lots of bigotry, ignorance, and fear-mongering. That's enough reason to suspect Wikipedia might be wrong. Wikipedia is terrible on anything like that. On things nobody much cares about, like the history of the Marvel villain MODOK, it's great.
  - jacoblyles 16y ago
    There is such a big difference between the claim that Sharia means six very non-controversial universal values (which the original poster claims) and that Sharia is a system of law based on Islamic beliefs as refined and interpreted by Muslim holy men, that I believe we ought to be able to determine which statement is closer to the truth regardless of interfering emotion. I suspect the original poster is being disingenuous by portraying Sharia law as such a bland and harmless thing.
dinkumthinkum 16y ago
But that is a distinction without a relevant difference. The finer points between Saudi Arabian and Egyptian law are uninteresting the context of "based on Sharia and totally ridiculous laws." Whether or not a particular crime requires a stoning in Saudia Arabia or a beheading in Egypt is just not that relevant. It's like quibling about the phonetic spelling is sort of highfalutin and irrelevant as well.

by kloncks 16y ago

MartinCron 16y ago

Thanks for sharing this, I'll no longer use "Sharia" as a denigrating term, as I probably have in the past.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Is this at all representative of the way sharia exists in practice? Can you provide, say, 5 examples of Islamic countries practicing sharia according to this strict interpretation that aren't overwhelmed by the influence of religous and ethnic traditionalism? If not then aren't you just arguing semantics? If the way sharia is practiced conforms to a certain well delineated set of patterns and that differs from some ideal definition of sharia which is the correct definition?

billybob 16y ago
I disagree. If in fact, that's what the original text says, then I don't think it's just semantics to avoid slamming the original text. I think it's important to distinguish between a religion or ideal - say, Christianity, or democracy - and what people do under that name. If church X doesn't follow the clear teachings of Jesus, that doesn't reflect poorly on Jesus, but on church X. If nation Y has rigged elections, that doesn't reflect poorly on democracy, but on nation Y. It is important to be able to ask theoretical questions like "is capitalism inherently flawed?" and separate them from "how is it being practised in this situation?" If capitalism + government meddling = failure, it's unfair to say that capitalism failed. Rather, we should say that capitalism wasn't practiced. I think the poster is just asking for the same kind of logical distinction.
- inklesspen 16y ago
  Sure, if one specific church is being heterodox, you can blame that on the church. And if it were one specific nation implementing shariah law as being all these nasty things, you could say it's just that nation. But what happens when _every_ nation that implements shariah law oppresses women, prohibits freedom of religion, and in general is a repressive society? 'Shariah' is a label. If all the nations that apply that label to their system have more or less the same repressive policies, it is not very helpful to say that none of them are correctly applying the label; the point is it's a label adopted by repressive societies.
  - borism 16y ago
    Perhaps you should educate yourself about moderate islamic countries?
    - inklesspen 16y ago
      Which would those be? Even the most moderate islamic countries are still way behind modern countries on the status of women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other such democratic values. Granted, many of them limit shariah law, such as in the case of Jordan, which limits it to "matters involving personal law such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody." But they still have it.
      - borism 16y ago
        > Even the most moderate islamic countries are still way behind modern countries on the status of women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other such democratic values. I wouldn't say countries like UAE, Kuwait, Turkey and many Mediterranean islamic countries are way behind. It also helps that Western countries are eroding mentioned freedoms and values themselves. See for example burqa ban in France. Now that's what I call a country without a freedom of religion.
        16y ago
azim 16y ago
I think you're misunderstanding what is meant by Sharia. It is not a strict set of rules. Because of this, it is necessarily influenced by ethnic traditionalism. Now if you're looking for western countries which have Sharia courts, the United Kingdom and India are two which come to mind which allow certain civil disputes to be resolved in Sharia courts.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  For a Sharia court in the UK to have the power of law though the participants in the case all first have to agree to that though, otherwise they don't have a legal leg to stand on. So it is only after you've voluntarily agreed to be bound that the court can proceed.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  The UK also has Jewish courts. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm
kloncks 16y ago
If you look at most of the Middle East countries, there are a few good examples of countries that practice Islamic (NOT Sharia ;)) law. Egypt, my home country, has a nice mix of Islamic law and British martial law. Jordan's similar. So is Turkey. Keep in mind that there are four big schools of thought (and that's just in Sunni Islam). Saudi Arabia and the gulf conform to one of those, and it's traditionally more conservative.

js2 16y ago

...when everyone was throwing around arguments against "infecting the constitution with Sharia" even though no one actually knows what Sharia is. Sadly, quite a few of the people who are ignorant about what Sharia is are probably also ignorant about what is written in the US Constitution. We're equal opportunity ignorant here in the US. :(

piguy314 16y ago
Freedom of speech is NOT compatible with the protection of the Islamic faith from depicting or criticizing Mohamed, PERIOD. There is zero room for negotiation there. So in that context there is NO misunderstanding that the U.S. constitution and sharia are not compatible.

illumin8 16y ago

The problem, as it is with any religion, is in the way men interpret the scripture. For example, Biblical law, on which all western legal systems are based, is similarly barbaric. The laws of all western societies come from the law of Moses, which is simply the ten commandments. The difference between modern interpretations of the law and old testament interpretations is that in Moses' time, the penalty for breaking any of the ten commandments was death, pure and simple. Coveted your neighbors posessions? Death. Coveted your neighbors wife? Death. Prayed to an idol of some other god? Death. In most western societies our legal system has evolved to the point where we recognize that the punishment should fit the crime. The problem, as I see it, is that most modern muslim societies haven't progressed to this point yet. They still practice barbaric customs such as cutting the hands off of thieves, or public stonings. As a whole, humanity needs to denounce all barbaric punishments and legal systems, regardless of origin. The thing that is so ironic to me is that some of the same religious conservatives in the US that are speaking out against Sharia law, if you ask them, will tell you they want the US to go to a biblical law system. They are pretty much one and the same at that level.

kloncks 16y ago
I agree with most of your points, minus the phrase "most modern Muslim societies haven't progressed to this point". Yes, there's a fair share of the problems, but I can honestly just think of a few (3 or less) that truly practice the old barbaric stuff. Most, even though have other problems, have at least progressed away from that.
- illumin8 16y ago
  Your point is well taken. Perhaps I should say "some modern Muslim societies." I should take care not to exaggerate this.
ars 16y ago
"Coveted your neighbors posessions? Death." That's not true. You really shouldn't just make things up to support an argument.

zeteo 16y ago

As far as I can tell, there is a wide variety in people's interpretation of Sharia. In practice Sharia's introduction has been recently associated with very harsh punishments (amputation, stoning): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Contemporary_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Contemporary_practice There are definitely lots of people who choose to view Sharia this way, and invariably this kind of interpretation seems to have prevailed in practical settings. So what makes your view of Sharia the One True Interpretation? Do you even have some references, from the relevant religious authorities, to the effect that these six principles you enumerate are all of Sharia and nothing else?

btilly 16y ago

What you say is true, but disingenuous. It is like saying that British common law is just adherence to the principle that judgments should be made in accordance with principles that were accepted in previous judgments, and it varies widely across different jurisdictions. This is true, but British common law means a lot more than just that. The same is true of Sharia law. It has a lot of baggage. And it doesn't always read as a Westerner might naively like to read it. In particular when it comes to Sharia law, opposition tends to center on items 2 and 4 on your list. On #2, Sharia law protects the family, but with different definitions and severity than Western society accepts. Consider the asymmetry between men and women for divorce. Consider the punishments for adultery. Both are widespread in Sharia law, and neither is palatable to Western audiences. More problematic is item 4. It is not (as it is in the US constitution) the protection of freedom of religion. Instead it is the protection of the Islamic religion. (With limited protections for peoples of the book.) Thus we get anti-blasphemy rules, punishment for converting Muslims to another faith, etc. This is in direct conflict with core precepts of the US Constitution. This is not an accident of interpretation. It is a central feature of having a system of law whose purpose is to support a specific religion.

joelhaus 16y ago
This is not an accident of interpretation. It's much less clear than this. Highly recommend watching this show: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/inside-the-koran-3466/Overview http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/inside-the-kor...

jacoblyles 16y ago

I feel the need to fact-check this. Wikipedia's explanation of Sharia is more complex than what you say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia. Perhaps you could share why you think Wikipedia is wrong? The article states: "Sharia (Arabic شريعة Šarīʿa; [ʃaˈriːʕa], "way" or "path") is the sacred law of Islam. Muslims believe Sharia is derived from two primary Sources of Islamic law; namely, the divine revelations set forth in the Qur'an, and the sayings and example set by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh ("jurisprudence") interprets and extends the application of Sharia to questions not directly addressed in the primary sources by including secondary sources. These secondary sources usually include the consensus of the religious scholars embodied in ijma, and analogy from the Qur'an and Sunnah through qiyas. Shia jurists replace qiyas analogy with 'aql, or "reason"." The article further explains that Sharia covers areas of life such as diet, dress code, sexuality, personal morality, and the punishments prescribed for crimes - the aspects of law in Islamic countries that Westerners view as harsh and sometimes barbaric. For example, punishing theft with hand amputation is part of Sharia. In five Islamic countries under Sharia law the crime of Sodomy is punishable by death. "Sharia" is no more a specific set of laws than Anglo-Saxon "Common Law". But it is a certain way of creating and judging law based on Islamic religious tradition that is incompatible with a modern secular state. So if I were to use the term "Sharia" to refer to a strict and expansive system of law based on the Muslim religion, I would be correct.

jonhendry 16y ago
"Perhaps you could share why you think Wikipedia is wrong? " Sharia is a topic of highly emotional argument right now, with lots of bigotry, ignorance, and fear-mongering. That's enough reason to suspect Wikipedia might be wrong. Wikipedia is terrible on anything like that. On things nobody much cares about, like the history of the Marvel villain MODOK, it's great.
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  There is such a big difference between the claim that Sharia means six very non-controversial universal values (which the original poster claims) and that Sharia is a system of law based on Islamic beliefs as refined and interpreted by Muslim holy men, that I believe we ought to be able to determine which statement is closer to the truth regardless of interfering emotion. I suspect the original poster is being disingenuous by portraying Sharia law as such a bland and harmless thing.

dinkumthinkum 16y ago

But that is a distinction without a relevant difference. The finer points between Saudi Arabian and Egyptian law are uninteresting the context of "based on Sharia and totally ridiculous laws." Whether or not a particular crime requires a stoning in Saudia Arabia or a beheading in Egypt is just not that relevant. It's like quibling about the phonetic spelling is sort of highfalutin and irrelevant as well.