*headdesk*
Feb. 24th, 2011 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Tennessee Bill Wants to Make Shariah Law a Felony
I'm just going to quote Pat's Papers directly: Two Republican state legislators in Tennessee have introduced a bill that would make practicing Islamic Shariah law a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The bill categorizes any adherence to Shariah law—including prayers—as a “danger to homeland security” reports the Tennessean. Other states have attempted similar motions though most have focused on excluding Shariah law from US courtrooms. Critics call the bill “nonsense,” pointing out that “people of all faiths have to follow secular law.”
This is just silly. Aside from the snarking in the article ("Well, sharia law prohibits stealing, does this mean I should become a thief?") it's just absurd. "Well, of course, sharia law would have to apply to everybody and then they'd kill us all for not being Muslim! OMG!" Except... not so much. It's my understanding that things like sharia law (or, something more common in the US, Beth Din, the pluralization I'm not sure of) is optional. You have two parties who can't agree, and rather than take it to the secular courts they decide to take it to the appropriate religious courts instead. And why not? If you want your rabbi or your priest or your next door neighbor's cat to settle your dispute for you, who's to argue? So long as everybody agrees that this is the way to go, go you! It's just another form of alternative dispute resolution.
But - and correct me if I'm wrong here - in countries such as the US this is used for civil suits, not for criminal suits, mostly because you're not going to get the state to agree to try you in anything other than the state courts. So it pretty much as no effect on anybody outside the two parties who agreed to use this method.
Incidentally, speaking of Wikipedia, they say something interesting which I'm not going to try to back up at this time, instead trusting one of you to correct me if they're wrong:
One contribution Islamic law made to Western law, was the legal procedure. Until the Crusades, legal procedure in the West often consisted of "God's judgments" by boiling water (or another "ordeal") or by duel. By contrast, Islamic law decided on the basis of proof and allowed the defendants to express freely, a practice that had been established in the time of the second Caliph of Islam, Umar. Marcel Boisard argues that these procedures were transmitted to Europe via Louis IX, who instituted several reforms upon returning from the Crusades.[208]
If this is right, using the sarcasm employed earlier I can safely say... "Well, shariah law calls for a strict level of proof and for the defendants to, uh, defend themselves. You want to take that away?" Of course, that may very well be what some parties wish to do, but I'm a pessimist.
I'm just going to quote Pat's Papers directly: Two Republican state legislators in Tennessee have introduced a bill that would make practicing Islamic Shariah law a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The bill categorizes any adherence to Shariah law—including prayers—as a “danger to homeland security” reports the Tennessean. Other states have attempted similar motions though most have focused on excluding Shariah law from US courtrooms. Critics call the bill “nonsense,” pointing out that “people of all faiths have to follow secular law.”
This is just silly. Aside from the snarking in the article ("Well, sharia law prohibits stealing, does this mean I should become a thief?") it's just absurd. "Well, of course, sharia law would have to apply to everybody and then they'd kill us all for not being Muslim! OMG!" Except... not so much. It's my understanding that things like sharia law (or, something more common in the US, Beth Din, the pluralization I'm not sure of) is optional. You have two parties who can't agree, and rather than take it to the secular courts they decide to take it to the appropriate religious courts instead. And why not? If you want your rabbi or your priest or your next door neighbor's cat to settle your dispute for you, who's to argue? So long as everybody agrees that this is the way to go, go you! It's just another form of alternative dispute resolution.
But - and correct me if I'm wrong here - in countries such as the US this is used for civil suits, not for criminal suits, mostly because you're not going to get the state to agree to try you in anything other than the state courts. So it pretty much as no effect on anybody outside the two parties who agreed to use this method.
Incidentally, speaking of Wikipedia, they say something interesting which I'm not going to try to back up at this time, instead trusting one of you to correct me if they're wrong:
One contribution Islamic law made to Western law, was the legal procedure. Until the Crusades, legal procedure in the West often consisted of "God's judgments" by boiling water (or another "ordeal") or by duel. By contrast, Islamic law decided on the basis of proof and allowed the defendants to express freely, a practice that had been established in the time of the second Caliph of Islam, Umar. Marcel Boisard argues that these procedures were transmitted to Europe via Louis IX, who instituted several reforms upon returning from the Crusades.[208]
If this is right, using the sarcasm employed earlier I can safely say... "Well, shariah law calls for a strict level of proof and for the defendants to, uh, defend themselves. You want to take that away?" Of course, that may very well be what some parties wish to do, but I'm a pessimist.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-25 06:46 am (UTC)I actually lold when this dawned on me.
EDIT: Less funny:Isn't that what the Warriors of Terror have been doing since '01? :S
no subject
Date: 2011-02-26 12:59 am (UTC)Any set of specialized rules is likely to have a system for resolving disputes. Is the meat in that restaurant really ok under religious law, or was there some kind of mistake or fraud? Observant customers want to know, and there's no way to figure it out without checking with experts in the relevant religious law.
Tennessee is not the first place that tried to forbid practice of Islamic law. A traditional approach to enforcing such a policy was to require everybody to eat pork. And to eat during Ramadan. And to work on Friday. (They were also very suspicious of people who didn't eat pork on Yom Kippur, or who didn't work on Saturday. Oppression always seems to hit more than one group at a time.)
This bill doesn't have anything to do with courts. It is a direct attack on religious practice. It's obviously unconstitutional...but it's outrageous that it could even be proposed.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-26 09:30 pm (UTC)This bill doesn't have anything to do with courts. It is a direct attack on religious practice. It's obviously unconstitutional...but it's outrageous that it could even be proposed.
America, land of the semi-free!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-25 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-25 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-25 03:18 pm (UTC)