Here is a bracing alternative to the soothing and deceptive explanations of Sharia that Islamic supremacists and Useful Idiots are offering these days to counter anti-Sharia measures in various states. Yameen Rasheed is writing for the Maldives, but Sharia isn’t different there from what it is in the U.S.
“Comment: Shariah not a solution,” by Yameen Rasheed in Minivan News, April 30:
Yesterday, the Adhaalath party organised a large rally at the tsunami monument in Male”, to demand the implementation of Islamic Shariah in the Maldives.
The party was joined by “hundreds” of pseudo-religious NGOs whi [sic] lent their collective voice to the clamour for Shariah, supposedly an antidote to “˜murder, violent assaults, robbery, rape and drug abuse” in the country.
“The whole nation is threatened and institutions have failed,” the party said in a statement. The “˜only solution”, according to large banners put up across Male”, is Islamic Shariah.
What the Adhaalath Party and its friends fail to mention here is that by “˜Islamic Shariah”, they”re referring to a single interpretation of Shariah suitable to their rigid world-view — a minority opinion among the world’s many Muslim schools of thought that all hold different views of Shariah.
Actually, wherever there has been a Sharia state, Sharia has taken much the same form — the form that Yameen Rasheed characterizes as a “minority opinion.” There is no view of Sharia that doesn’t involve oppression of women and non-Muslims, death for apostasy, stoning for adultery, amputation for theft, etc.
Lady Injustice
One common criticism of clergy-controlled Shariah is the perceived injustice towards women. While these concerns are often met with heated denial, they”re also backed up by cold statistics.
In 2009, then Minivan News Editor, Mariyam Omidi, wrote a damning report highlighting the strong gender discrepancy in the meting out of punishment for “˜fornication” in the Maldives. According to government statistics cited in the report, out of 184 people sentenced to lashing for “˜fornication” under Shariah law, 146 were women.
Following his verdict in June 2005, a judge in the criminal court, helpfully offered his opinion that women were “˜deceptive creatures” according to the scriptures.
Almost exactly two years later, another judge ruled that the gang-rape of a 12 year old girl by four axe-wielding men who”d broken in through her bedroom window, was “˜consensual sex”, because the child didn’t scream audibly enough.
Last week, Mukhtar Mai, a woman who was gang-raped and dragged out naked in front of 200 higher-caste men in her village in Pakistan, had her hopes dashed when the courts upheld a ruling by semi-literate, tribal judges against her.
Given these realities, and a long series of cases where Muslim women have been punished for the crime of getting raped, one awaits an answer from the proponents of Sharia as to why a woman should ever step into their courts expecting justice.
Judge, Jury and Executioner
In Islamic Shariah, there is no jury, no defense lawyers, no prosecutors, no pre-trial discovery process, no courts of appeal, no cross-examination of witnesses, no legal precedents, and perhaps most damaging of all, little room for modern evidence.
Former State Minister of Islamic Affairs, Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, while graciously acknowledging the validity of long established forensic methods of DNA profiling, stated that such evidence could only be used as “˜supplementary” evidence, presumably while relying primarily on eye-witness testimonies, as practised in Arabia 1400 years ago.
Furthermore, due to the lack of separation of powers in Islamic Shariah, the Mullah is literally the judge, jury and executioner on whose shaky whims the mortal life of the accused rests.
Coupled with the severe lack of capable judges, this is often a recipe for disaster….
There is much more. Read it all.