Strange -- Rape not under Sharia law in Islamic country

Submitted by Romesh Chander (United States), Sep 13, 2007 at 15:18

Mr Curmally:

You wrote "Rape is no longer tried under the Shari'at Act In Pakistan. It is a civil matter today. Barring this one point, the Sharia'at Act was not undone and is still in practise.".

Well, if that is true and Maulana Fazal Rahaman and his fundamentalists had no objection to bringing rape under civil laws, then why does not Pakistan get rid of all Hudood laws (i.e., lashing, cutting of limbs, lashing for adultery, etc) and make them all civil matters? In Islam, you can't pick and choose; it is all or nothing. Then they want to waste their time debating and implementing whether they should make banking interest-free.

Frankly, as I understand it, rape is now tried as adultery which still comes under the jurisdiction of Sharia courts. Seems to me, Fazal Rahamn is quite clever; he can bring out tens of thousands jihadis in the streets in minutes any silly issue and then he agrees to rape being tried as adultery. So, for a woman, nothing has changed. Just a clever way of presenting some issues.

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