abu_rashid wrote on Mar 24
th, 2010 at 9:31am:
Actually Karnal, the fault here is with the Muslims who talk about implementing Shari'ah law. This is not Shari'ah law at all. It's merely a few aspects of family and contract law that they mean. They shouldn't use the word Shari'ah law, knowing how susceptible Westerners are to basing their opinions about things on very little knowledge of them.
It's like Aboriginal tribal laws in parts of Australia or Jewish Halachic laws in Britain, they are not actually implementing those law systems, but merely some non-binding parts of them used amongst mutually agreeing parties and having recognition under the common law.
Like with everything else regarding Islam though, we only hear about the supposed mountain, never the molehill that better fits the reality.
Ignorant people are usually ignorant for a reason, because they don't have the capacity to think beyond a very limited scope.
The mountain is this - there is a non-negotiable, fundamental inequality built into every aspect of Islamic law: a woman is only half a man. Apply islamic principles (don't even call the sharia) to family law, civil disputes about property, inheritance matters, neighbourhood disputes, anything, and see if it is compatible with Western law. ANd that's just one incompatible element.
The aspect of voluntary use of Islamic courts, and therefore its supposed acceptability to women is spurious because in Islamic families, patriarchy rules (just like it did everywhere a 100 years ago). But now is now, not a 100 years ago. Back than, it may have not bee so different but now, Islamic legal thinking is hoopelessly incompatible with Western law,
especially in domestic matters. 500 years ago Islam did not have to resort to appeals to 'minority rights' or some such weepy subterfuge - they marched in, cut your balls off if you were luck, you head if you weren't and bingo! It was Sharia law all round.
Who hasn't heard of the Trojan horse or salami tactics? It is no secret that islam wants to dominate and has a much longer view of such things than the kiddies today who think history started 50 years ago when hirsute Arabs were only known for their love of shopping at Harrods.