Disingenuous

Submitted by Alain Jean-Mairet (Switzerland), Dec 30, 2006 at 01:41

One lie after another.

I find it quite amusing that the legal opinion that you quote in support of your goal of banning Islam borrows from the secular court of Turkey - a country that is 99% Muslim and where Islam is surely not banned or even close to being banned.

The legal opinion I'm referring to is that of the European Court of Human Rights. It states quite clearly that sharia law "faithfully reflects the dogmas and divine rules laid down by religion, is stable and invariable." The fact that this is also supported by some other, Constitutional, Court, doesn't take one bit away from the demonstration.

I am a secularist Muslim, and therefore no fan of the sharia or Islamists, but in defence of the Sharia - it is simply religious law that changes over time.

Well, you happen to think that both mentioned courts are wrong. Your call.

It is fluid, and has changed over time and in fact is different in every country you find it.

Fallacious. In fact, Sharia law is different according to religious authorities (schools of jurisprudence), not of states. Those differences are irrelevant for what is concerning behaviors dictated by jihad, dhimma, hudud and slavery.

Sharia law in Nigeria is a compltely different thing than that in Saudi Arabia and both are completely off the wall when compared to Sharia law in Egyptian sharia courts and Indonesian sharia courts.

Wrong. Those big differences are not those of Sharia. They come from the different scope of its application. Colonialists abrogated Sharia. Some parts of it were tolerated. With the independence, and the rise of islamism, Sharia law is reappearing, piece after piece, state after state, mixed with other laws of foreign inspiration. For example, seven states are now officially applying its criminal rules in their (sometimes codified) laws.

Bottom line is that it all depends on who interprets it. And if you are a feminist your sharia law is probably very oriented to women's rights. If you believe in democracy, your sharia is probably very democratic. Religion and religious law is all about interpretation, and the reason most sharia is offensive to western standards, is because they have been formed by sexist men who want to keep themselves in power.

Sophism. Islam itself is not democratic -- plain people's opinion is totally irrelevant for the content of God's law. Only the scope of application, or, better, of credibility, of that medieval body of law may vary. In Turkey, Democracy was forcefully, well militarily, imposed in a Muslim country, a long time ago. So, today, you can have such fallacious discussions and get away with it. But if Islam is to be the rule, Sharia is to be the law. And Sharia is just like it is, with what non-Muslims would consider only quite small differences among the madhahib (there are greater differences with the Shia version, but they almost only make things worse).

The interpretation lies upstream, between the sacred texts (Koran, Tradition, Sira) and the sacred laws. And the observation of the different sacred laws shows that Muslims never could respect the core of the sacred texts without imposing, among other things, jihad (sacred war against all polytheists), dhimma (social humiliating segregation of Jews, Christians and other monotheists), hududs (public mutilations and punishments for "crimes against God") and slavery, the worst version of it ever, where you are allowed to "make" slaves and send them to their death in combat for the benefit of Islam.

All this is actually already forbidden in all free, democratic countries (including Turkey, yet). But it has to be stated, as loudly as possible, that the practice of Islamic religion never occurred without either the application of those inhuman laws or their forceful prohibition. That is the choice we have. And if we don't make that choice, we, or our children, will have to live (and die) under those laws.

Muslims have a choice more. They may choose to try and reinterpret their sacred texts into some new laws. But in order to be efficient and credible, this process would have to be at least as large and well-grounded than all the previous, consensual interpretations of history. The rest is just Dawa, treacherous publicity.

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".