Law Making Islamic Law Illegal Again

Ibtihaj Muhammad leads an interactive fencing demonstration in New York. She chose her sport in role because it allowed her to compete while wearing the hijab. (Charles Sykes/AP)

Asifa Quraishi-Landes is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Schoolhouse of Law.

Conspicuously, Americans fear sharia, Islam'south legal framework. At least nine states have passed "foreign police force" statutes banning sharia in American courts — fifty-fifty though no U.S. court has ever ruled based on sharia. Although the Constitution expressly forbids a religious test for would-be leaders of the nation, then-presidential candidate Ben Carson said last yr that he'd oppose any Muslim White House aspirant who was "not willing to decline sharia." In this election year, Donald Trump calls for a ban on all Muslim clearing, and pundits debate that sharia prompted the killing of innocent dancers at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Falsehoods about Islam abound, and many of them centre on what sharia is and what it is non. Here are five myths.

Myth No. 1

Sharia is "Islamic police."

After the March terrorist set on in Brussels, Trump said that European Muslims "desire to go by sharia police force." In May, Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) claimed that Muslims in Michigan "have tried to implement their version of sharia police in the U.s.a.." Talk-show host Mark Levin says, "Nosotros already have creeping sharia law in this country." Listening to these voices, you might think the W is on the verge of switching to a whole new legal system.

Merely sharia isn't even "law" in the sense that we in the West understand information technology. And virtually devout Muslims who embrace sharia conceptually don't call up of it equally a substitute for civil law. Sharia is non a volume of statutes or judicial precedent imposed past a authorities, and information technology's not a fix of regulations adjudicated in courtroom. Rather, information technology is a body of Koran-based guidance that points Muslims toward living an Islamic life. Information technology doesn't come from the land, and information technology doesn't even come in one volume or a single collection of rules. Sharia is divine and philosophical. The human being interpretation of sharia is chosen "fiqh," or Islamic rules of right activity, created by individual scholars based on the Koran and hadith (stories of the prophet Muhammad'southward life). Fiqh literally means "understanding" — and its many different schools of idea illustrate that scholars knew they didn't speak for God.

Fiqh distinguishes between the spiritual value of an action (how God sees it) and the worldly value of that action (how it affects others). Fiqh rules might obligate a devout Muslim to pray, just it's not the job of a Muslim ruler to enforce that obligation. Fiqh is not designed to help governments constabulary morality in the style, say, Saudi Arabia does today. According to classical fiqh scholarship, a Muslim ruler'southward chore was to put forth some other type of law, called siyasa, based on what all-time serves the public expert. The most vivid example of this was the recognition of incestuous (female parent-son, brother-sister) marriages practiced by some non-Muslim minorities living under Muslim rule, dating dorsum at least to the 14th century, despite the abhorrence, generally, of such marriages to Islam. In other words, sharia doesn't hold that everything objectionable to Islam should exist outlawed.

Myth No. 2

In Muslim countries, sharia is the police of the state.

Last year, Saudi Arabia's ambassador in London demanded that British officials respect his country'southward legal system "based on sharia police force." An analysis of deepening religiosity in Indonesia past the Gatestone Institute, a foreign affairs think tank, said the country was "leaning more and more towards . . . Sharia laws."

While it's true that sharia influences the legal codes in most Muslim-bulk countries, those codes have been shaped by a lot of things, including, most powerfully, European colonialism. France, England and others imposed nation-state models on nearly every Muslim-majority land, inadvertently joining the crown and the religion. In pre-modern Muslim lands, fiqh potency was dissever from the governing authority, or siyasa. Colonialism centralized law with the state, a system that carried over when these countries regained independence.

When Muslim political movements, such as Jamaat-east-Islami in Pakistan or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, accept looked to formulate sharia in their countries, they accept done and then without whatsoever attention to the classical separation of fiqh and siyasa, instead continuing the legal centralization of the European nation-state. That'southward why these movements look to legislate sharia — they desire centralized laws for everything. But by using state power to force item religious doctrines upon the public, they would essentially create Muslim theocracies, contrary to what existed for most of Muslim history.

Myth No. 3

Sharia is anti-woman.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali American, former member of the Dutch parliament and i of the nearly visible critics of Islam, says that Islamic police "is inherently hostile to women" considering of its wedlock laws, among other reasons. Many Westerners see Muslim women's headcover every bit a kind of oppression. This year, for example, French Prime number Minister Manuel Valls endorsed his country's effort to ban the hijab on university campuses, calling it a symbol of the "enslavement of women." In that location is a verse in the Koran that holds that men are the "protectors" of women, but many gimmicky scholars dispute the notion that this suggests women must obey men or that women are junior.

While it's true that many majority-Muslim societies take laws that treat women unfairly, many of these laws, like Saudi Arabia's ban on female person drivers, have no ground in fiqh. In instances where at that place is a fiqh origin for modern legislation, that legislation often crimson-picks certain rules, including more woman-affirming interpretations. And on a range of issues, Islam can fairly be described equally feminist. Fiqh scholars, for example, have ended that women have the correct to orgasm during sexual activity and to fight in combat. (Women fought aslope the prophet Muhammad himself.) Fiqh can also be interpreted equally pro-option, with sure scholars positing that although ballgame is forbidden, showtime-trimester abortions are not punishable.

Fiqh doctrine says a woman'due south property, held exclusively in her proper name, cannot exist appropriated by her hubby, brother or father. (For centuries, this stood in stark contrast with the property rights of women in Europe.) Muslim women in America are sometimes shocked to find that, even though they were careful to list their assets every bit split, those can be considered joint assets later marriage.

To be sure, there are patriarchal rules in fiqh, and many of these are legislated in modern Muslim-bulk countries. For case, women in Iran can't run for president or attend men'south soccer matches. Simply these rules are human interpretations, not sharia.

Myth No. 4

Islam demands brutal punishments.

The organized religion'south reputation for savagely punishing lawbreakers — with stoning, flogging, etc. — is so prevalent that even Disney's 1992 movie "Aladdin" made low-cal of cutting off thieves' hands. It doesn't help that the Islamic Country routinely kills innocents for all sorts of perceived transgressions, despite the Koran'southward prohibition of wanton violence: Information technology forbids attacks on civilians, belongings, houses of worship and fifty-fifty animals.

In the aforementioned mode that the Ku Klux Klan's tactics are a poor representation of Christian practise (despite its claims to be a Christian organization), the Islamic Land is the worst identify to look to empathise what sharia says about punishment and the treatment of innocents and prisoners. Information technology'south truthful that sharia permits harsh corporal penalization, including amputation of limbs, but fiqh restricts its application. Theft, for example, doesn't include anything stolen out of hunger or items of low value. (That piece of fruit Jasmine "stole" in "Aladdin" certainly wouldn't qualify.) Infidelity? Yes, corporal punishment for extramarital sexual practice is Koranic in origin, but information technology comes with an extremely loftier evidentiary burden of proof: iv middle-witnesses. Information technology's a sin but not i that is the business of the state to punish.

Myth No. 5

Sharia is nearly conquest.

In 2010, as he was preparing for his presidential campaign, former Business firm speaker Newt Gingrich gave a speech stating: "Stealth jihadis apply political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; vehement jihadis use violence. . . . They're both seeking to impose the same stop country, which is to supervene upon Western civilization with a radical imposition of sharia." His remarks reflect a widely held view that Muslims are bound to wage state of war against not-Muslims.

But no such duty exists. The Koran repeatedly commands Muslims to keep promises and uphold covenants. That includes treaties amongst nations and extends to individuals living nether non-Muslim rule. Muslims have lived equally minorities in not-Muslim societies since the beginning of Islam — from Christian Abyssinia to imperial China. And fiqh scholars have ever insisted that Muslims in non-Muslim lands must obey the laws of those lands and do no harm within host countries. If local constabulary conflicts with Muslims' sharia obligations? Some scholars say they should emigrate; others allow them to stay. Only none advocate violence or a takeover of those governments.

Twitter: @AQuraishiLandes

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you lot think you know. Y'all can cheque out previous myths, read more than from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.

crosbyhatime.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-sharia/2016/06/24/7e3efb7a-31ef-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html

Bagikan Artikel ini