Sharia vs Religious Arbitration

Submitted by Jimmy (United States), Aug 12, 2011 at 13:16

In all this noise about Sharia law, which, in itself, must not be ignored, given the activism of Islamists and the reluctance of liberals to acknowledge it as a problem (as usual), there is the issue of private contracts and arbitration rulings based on mutually agreed-upon religiously-based law.

Specifically, the anti-Sharia law frenzy has misdirected its angst against these perfectly legal and reasonable instruments that are used by religious people of all stripes. There is, in my experience, the Jewish religious court, Bet Din, that makes rulings that have been accepted by courts as private arbitration agreements that are not contrary to prevailing local, state, and federal law. We must not allow the backlash against secular Sharia law implementation impact this kind of private use as it would interfere with the free exercise of religion.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".