Sharia, as has been explained to me, is a system of rules, a consensus of the unified spirit of the Islamic fantasy ideology, based on the Qur’an (a religious text), hadith (stories about Muhammad and his companions) and centuries of debate, interpretation and judgements by Islamic clerics. It is predicated on the submission of the individual to the claimed divine ordinations of a despotic supernatural deity.

Any acts by self-appointed proponents of ideologies predicated on peoples’ subservience to a despotic corporeal or supernatural entity directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948), the European Convention on Human Rights and the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998. These legal constructs do not refer to the rights of gods, deities, mystical spirits, dead prophets, tooth fairies or any other supernatural entity. They refer exclusively to the rights of corporeal homo sapiens – the People.

It is unlawful to bind any individual person involuntarily or voluntarily to an exclusive ideological or religious dogma predicated on the unsubstantiated divine authority of a despotic supernatural deity.

The application of Sharia rules to the actions or circumstances of any UK resident is unlawful under UK statute.

consider that universal law speaks for the majority and does not represent minorities. recognizing difference is part of resisting hegemonic populations and representing society as it really is- multicultural.

That is not what modern law has been about. The whole point of stuff like the ECHR, which is embedded in UK law, has been to limit the ability of the majority to enforce hegemony on minorities. It would be difficult to argue the opposite point of view when faced with this:

Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

My point is that modern universal laws support difference rather than stifle it.

Obviously, if both parties to a dispute wish to render themselves subject to a religious hierarchy, then so be it. However that religious dispute resolution process ought to be subject to EHCR, and other, standards.

consider that universal law speaks for the majority and does not represent minorities. recognizing difference is part of resisting hegemonic populations and representing society as it really is- multicultural.

this does not necessarily mean introducing sharia law is necessary or the right way to go about representation of diversity. My point is that ‘difference blind’ politics does not represent EVERYONE…
unversal laws may be “particularism masquerading as universalism”-charles taylor “poltics of recognition”

The same isn’t subjective. They must be treated the same in terms of accommodation, finances, kind treatment and so forth. If a husband buys a gift it must be for all wives and not one.

By the way having multiple wives isn’t encouraged, in historical times this was to help women who had been widowed etc.

I’ll check about the permission issue – I may be wrong but I thought permission was needed.

well go to an academic discourse. you probably wont last long, but the conversations are real. not a poxy brown ringed discussion board. ‘yaar’

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Imran Khan

People are judging shariah by poor implementations in Afghanistan, parts of Africa and what goes on in the Arabian Peninsula. That isn’t what Shariah is about.

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Sid

Where is there an implementation of Shari’a that that you would rather it judged by?

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Boyo — on 4th December, 2008 at 11:58 am

That’s the point – there isn’t, and never will be, because “only God is perfect”

Utopianism – whether in its Socialist or Islamist or Neo Conservatism clothes – only results in misery and excuses.

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Yet all I found was (coin in to slot):

True Shariah can’t be in place until everyone can get justice from the system. In all the examples people quote people can’t get justice easily so it can’t be shariah – it just has aspects of shariah.

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Utopia is also the Ancient Greek word for unreachable. Islamism is a post-Christian Utopian movement that believes in building heaven here on earth. John Gray argues that the same also applies to Communism, Nazism and Neo Conservatism. Do you see a pattern here? I don’t doubt Imran’s sincerity, but history plainly demonstrates where that can lead.

interesting

islamic marriage procedures are interesting – its a trick testing the smartness of the female – basically if you are a woman who has a guardian with knowledge of the law – and advises you on pre-nuptual agreements, you can sort yourself out on many counts. e.g. that the bloke cant marry again without your permission, that you want equivalent rights as your husband with regards to divorce, you can put in these clauses and it will be valid. Because its a contract between two parties, so if you’d thought of these things before, and the man agrees and signs it, well then he is bound to it.

of course, usually women don’t find out till later when the qadi says ‘well if you’d had legal advice my dear and written this into the pre-nup..”

so again – knowledge is key.

“sharia its pretty socially contructed. theres no reason why it cant be constructed better.” true – good point. what i want to see is some clear discusson about how its going to be constructed better, not just some politician style rhetorical statements on the fact that it WILL be better.

longest post in all of humankind. if you werent jewish id think you were salafi.

my sympathy for your fingers.

however this is nothing to do with anything important like the ressusitation of islamic thought, of which the legal part is only one component.

its about symbolic willy waving.

NO its not – permission is NOT required! (they do have to be treated the same but ’same’ is subjective isn’t it. You’re not very well up on fiqh or Islam are you? i always thought so but that is only because the law of Bangladesh. Arabs for example often don’t even bother telling the first wife, though it is encouraged that one should ‘out of courtesy’

the whole polygamy thing is what mixes up the parallel systems of law of course doesn’t it.

yes well its not that different. it all depends on what you consider religious divorce though. and i think the complication is how it sits alongside the civil law of whatever country you live in. so the issue is what #counts#as religious divorce and whether those components exist in civil procedures. there is disagreement about what EXACTLY constitutes divorce islamically.

basically islam sees marriage as a contract and dissolution of that contract has certain rules and procedures, but if those are present in a non-ostensibly religious format, it still holds. this may be a more liberal interpretation (the spirit of the law) rather than the more strict interpretations which demand the presence of an islamic qadi to ’sign it off’ with special rituals etc.

Sunnipath (that wonderful site) has many questions asked by people – this is one is whether a divorce obtained in a UK court holds islamically – the shaykh says it does ‘but to consult a scholar’ (aha!)

according to my Dad, if you get divorced in a British/any “civil” court, that divorce is effectively being divorced ‘islamically’ too. because you have declared your intention to divorce, observed a certain period of time, signed it in the presence of witnesses etc. being the key things. (you also have to wait longer under British law for example – which may be why some people want to do it ‘islamically’, especially if they haven’t even had a civil marriage!)

generally, understanding parallel systems of law when it comes to people getting married in one country, getting divorced, moving somewhere else, all these transnational cases etc. – are very complex. I doubt this is all something most of us laymen understand – so a lot of learning to be done.

If that isn’t made clear (and you aren’t doing so by saying it’s not been implemented properly anywhere) you get the usual shrill stuff:
a) Sharia is going to apply to everybody.

b) They’re going to implement the Sharia penal code in the UK.

c) They’re not going to implement non-penal aspects of Sharia but are going to implement other stuff that goes against UK law e.g. allowing multiple wives.

For example, the “One Law For All” article specifically mentions multiple wives and is endorsed by the “International Committee against Stoning” – as if they would be allowed in any Shariah implementation working within UK law.

Yes but this isn’t permissible in Sharia, where permission is required and they have to all be treated exactly the same. The Qur’an says clearly if you can’t treat them the same then you can’t marry them.

So you are using a corrupt form of law, portray it as religious and then saying it is unfair. That isn’t the Sharia law so why unfairly equate it as such.

Islamically a women can write into a marriage contract that a man is forbidden to marry additional wives. So the female has control of the situation. If Bangladesh ignores this that is the stupidity of Bangladesh not Islam.

But with respect this all goes back to a lack of education in all senses not just religious amongst Muslims.

If Muslim people actually learnt about the faith then you wouldn’t have things going on as they do, stupid statements about other faiths and the west etc.

“but he isnt bashing people for being muslim is he? he engages in certain critiques which do involve some muslims, yes, but its usually what they’re up to and not about them being muslim.

obviously!”

When people dare to disagree with him he gets very very very very nasty. It decends from discussion and debate to smears, innuendo and plain nastiness. That is hardly constructive. Possibly he thinks he is Paxman but it is all uncalled for. He is much like Chamberlain when he came back from Germany waving his bit of paper as if he has found something we don’t know about.

Occasionally you become like this.

I don’t have a problem with good discussion and debate but descending to the nonsense is uncalled for and those types of attacks are usually reserved by Sid for Muslims. Argue the point and don’t defame the person.

“One need only look at India to see the effects of differing personal laws for Muslims, Hindus and Christians which disadvantages women eg. regarding amount of compensation/maintainance received upon divorce compared to their Hindu sisters.”

“In neighnouring Bangladesh a bloke can marry a second wife without his first wife’s permission despite the Muslim Family Law Ordnance 1961 stating permission is necessary. ”

quite

otherwise – you have the situation you had before – one set of laws for “Whites” one set for Blacks, Coloured, Muslims, Hindus. Highly divisive and race-ist/group-ist.

and people have got to realise they are part of the wider polity, and not just in ‘tightly-bounded’ groups which don’t overlap. we’re all individuals in a wide loose society which involves many affiliations.