Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men

Islamic World News

06 Aug 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men

Somalia to Sydney, jihad does not rest Is al-Qaeda working in Nigeria? Pakistan: Deadly Rioting Was Planned Pak clerics say suicide bombings against Islam Expansion of Islamic Saudi Academy outrages opponents Kuala Lumpur: Islamic councils allowed fighting Catholic Church over 'Allah' Malaysia A Good Example of an Islamic Nation, Says PM Patna (India): Muslims refute terror allegations against madrasas Muslim families call for tolerance, understanding Rebuilding Swat's shattered infrastructure 'Muslims in Gujarat should strengthen rapport with Hindus' Muslim history vs. Islamic history Compiled by Syed Asadullah URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1607 ------------   Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men, and the detriment of everyone else Why Islamic Law is the Antithesis of Equal Justice By Daniel Greenfield, Wednesday, August 5, 2009   In Sudan a dozen women were sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants. Some of them were Christian, but that has never really mattered, as the essential premise of Islamic law is that it is inherently superior to every other law. Naturally no men have ever been sentenced for wearing pants. That is a law that applies only to women, because there is a fundamental difference between Islamic law and Western law, not simply in morality or structure-- but in equality.   A Muslim man will never be sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants, just as a Muslim Imam will never be tried for blasphemy no matter how many ugly things he says about Hindusim, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. Blasphemy is a charge that is meaningful only in relation to the doctrine that is at the heart of Islamic law, that is Islam itself.   Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men, and the detriment of everyone else. It is the product of an inherently unequal system, designed to perpetuate that system. Under it non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims because by rejecting the "truth" of Islam, they cast doubts about their moral fitness. A non-Muslim is an infidel who drinks alcohol, eats pork and has forbidden sexual relations. As far as Islamic law is concerned he is already of poor moral character and a criminal.   Women are inferior to men, as they are lower in status than men. When Mohammed declared, or was said to declare in Islamic scripture, that, "I also saw the Hell-fire and I had never seen such a horrible sight. I saw that most of the inhabitants were women", he was articulating the top down theology of a cult that defined sinfulness in terms of position of tribal power. Therefore in the Mohammedan vision of hell, the underworld was to be populated mostly by women for their ingratitude to their husbands, who under Islam were also their masters. And slaves are defined as moral to the degree that they serve their masters.   Under the circular logic of Islam, women are second class citizens because they are untrustworthy, and untrustworthy because they are second class citizens. This makes women automatically suspect of all sorts of things. It is why a woman who was raped is more at fault than the man who raped her. In the Islamic worldview, which is itself a carryover of Bedouin tribalism, a rapist has taken someone else's property. By contrast the woman who was raped was careless with the property of her husband or her father. Whether the woman had consensual sex or was raped does not matter very much, because in either case she is only property that was damaged. Not a human being. The honour killing is simply a male relative or spouse destroying what Islamic tribalism considers to be "damaged property". Her consent is not considered significant, because Islamic law does not take the agency of a woman seriously, or treat her as competent to make decision on the level of a man in the first place.   It is why the woman is always at fault. While Western jurisprudence considers diminished capacity to be an extenuating circumstance, Islamic jurisprudence considers it to be a statement of guilt. That is because Western jurisprudence presumes innocence, while Islamic jurisprudence presumes guilt. The lower the role, the more readily the presumption of guilt is applied. Since Islam treats all people as inherently sinful, and therefore perpetually guilty, the higher the form of awareness, the more likely the Muslim is to avoid sin. A Muslim mam has more agency than a woman, and is more likely to do the right thing. A Muslim woman is considered to have less agency, which is why she must have a husband to master her, and why Islam considers her more likely to be at fault. Like slaves, women can only demonstrate their worth through submission to their masters. Muslim men in turn can only demonstrate their worth through submission to the will of Allah as expressed by the Imams. Since the core of Islamic law is held by Arab Muslims, they effectively serve as superior to non-Arab Muslims. And throughout it all, one thing is missing. Equality under the law and equal justice for all.   If there is one thing that is innate to the functioning of a democratic society, it is that every person is legally equal under the law. It is also why Islamic Law or Sharia, is incompatible with a democratic society, because Islamic law presumes the inequality of everyone who is not a Muslim male as a given. Defenders of Sharia have tried to get around this by pointing to the things that Islamic law did not take away from women and non-Muslims while willfully ignoring the things that it did take away. This is a basic reality that Westerners have been kept deliberately ignorant of. Yet the moment a Western tourist sets foot in a Muslim country, she has left a system where she is legally the equal of anyone else, and entered a system in which she is dramatically unequal. A woman or any non-Muslim who enters a Muslim country is now under the power of a legal system that considers her or him inferior in morals, in character and in testimony.   At the heart of the problem are the fundamentally different realities at the heart of law in a democratic nation and within Islam.   Citizens of First World nations see the legal system as part of a social contract with a government of their choice. The law is the expression of the wishes and values of the citizenry. And it treats everyone as inherently equal under the law because otherwise fairness becomes impossible. By contrast Islamic law is not part of any social contract, it is a decree of the Prophet and the various Muslim figures throughout the ages who have interpreted his sayings. It is not part of a bottom up civil society, it is a strictly top down series of clauses that mixes tribal customs, stolen scraps of other religions, with the determined will of a ruthless, though illiterate, warlord.   Islam does not recognize human equality. It is premised on human inequality. Women cannot be subject to the same laws as men, just as Mohammed was not subject to the same laws as men. Indeed the Koran records that Mohammed explicitly had the law rewritten on his behalf when he desired something, such as Zaynab, who happened to be married to his adopted son. A minor matter for the Prophet. The Koran also limited the number of permissible wives to four. This did not stop Mohammed from marrying as many as fifteen women. Muslims do not see the contradiction in any of this, because there is no premise of equality under Islamic law. You are only as "equal" as your spiritual standing within the Ummah permits. If Western nations admit Sharia, then they are admitting to a state of inequality under the law   There is no "I" in Islam, except in the alphabetical sense. Islam means participation in the Ummah, the dead Mohammed's "Kingdom of Heaven" on earth, as exemplified by the Muslim community as a whole, to be ideally expressed as the Caliphate that everyone from Al Queda on down to a hundred different regional ethnic terrorist groups such as Hamas, Abu Sayyaf, Hizbullah, the Taliban, Al-Ummah, Al-Faran and numerous others. What they all have in common is the mandate to enforce Islamic law as the only and absolute law, without any compromise, while scourging away any traces of Western law or culture whose pernicious individualism threatens the essential premise of the Ummah.   The suicide bomber best expresses the contempt that Islam has for the individual, whose life is better off sacrificed, often unnecessarily, simply to prove the willingness of Muslim believers to kill in the name of Islamic rule. There can be no middle ground of compromise between Islamic law and civil law, because Sharia is not legal, it is religious. There can be no concession to the rights of the individual, because Islam does not recognize the worth of individuals or their power to make law, rather than be subject to it.   It is why Islamic law is the antithesis of equal justice under the law, and the two of them cannot co-exist side by side. If Western nations admit Sharia, then they are admitting to a state of inequality under the law. And that will be Islam's greatest triumph over the freedom of the individual and the equality of man. Source: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13397 ------- Somalia to Sydney, jihad does not rest August 5, 2009 WHAT does Somalia have in common with Australia? Until recently, almost nothing. The two nations, if Somalia can still be called a nation, had basically zero historical, economic and cultural links until the Department of Immigration began accepting some Somali refugees to Australia. Now we are told by the Federal Police there is a direct link between the violent mayhem in Somalia and an alleged plot to attack and kill soldiers at the Holsworthy army base in Sydney. Police are holding four Australian-born Muslim men who have been arrested for allegedly conspiring to commit a terrorist attack in Australia as part of the wider cause of global jihad. The Holsworthy base was allegedly targeted in symbolic retribution for the deployment of Australian troops to theatres of war in two Muslim countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. The NSW Police Commissioner said the police acted after they perceived an attack was ''likely imminent''. The arrests, coming so soon after two fatal terrorist bombings in Jakarta that targeted Australian civilians, are a wake-up call. Security at Holsworthy is casual, so the base is a soft target even though it is a military installation. While the American-led rhetoric of the war on terrorism has mercifully been put to rest, there is no rest in the desire by some to commit murder, justified as holy war, on behalf of Islam. That threat is as real as it ever was. It takes the actions of only a rabid few to wreak terror on civilian populations. Full report at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/somalia-to-sydney-jihad-does-not-rest-20090804-e8hr.html?page=2 ------- Is al-Qaeda working in Nigeria? By Andrew Walker Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the Islamic sect whose members staged attacks across north Nigeria leaving 700 people dead last week, was facing charges that he had received money from an al-Qaeda linked organisation, defence analysts have revealed. For years diplomats have feared a Nigerian al-Qaeda sleeper cell might launch attacks on the country's oil infrastructure, which is increasingly important to the US. Nigeria, with its large number of impoverished, disenfranchised and devoutly Muslim young men, easy access to weapons and endemic corruption may seem to be the ideal breeding ground for anti-western radicals. The presence of an al-Qaeda branch operating across the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, Morocco, Mali and Niger and Nigeria's porous borders have sharpened such fears. But so far there has been no evidence of Osama Bin Laden's group in Nigeria, despite several arrests by the government and two warnings from the US about potential attacks on its interests in the country in as many years. And analysts remain sceptical about any link between Nigerian radical Muslims and global jihadists. Koranic school The charges against Mr Yusuf were brought by the Nigerian government in 2006, but have never reached a court, says Will Hartley of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre. Mr Yusuf was accused of receiving money from an alleged al-Qaeda group in Sudan to recruit young men to his organisation. Full report at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8182289.stm ----- Pakistan: Deadly Rioting Was Planned, Group Says August 5, 2009 An independent human rights commission said Tuesday that rioting that killed eight Christians last week was not spontaneous but was planned by the attackers, some of whom belong to a militant group linked to Al Qaeda. The police were questioning more than 200 people about the attacks, in which hundreds of Muslims burned down a Christian neighbourhood in Gojra. The Punjab Province law minister, Rana Sanaullah, said that those arrested included members of the banned Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is linked to Al Qaeda. The commission said many attackers came from a neighbouring district, Jhang, a militant stronghold. The commission said announcements made from mosques the day before the attack called on Muslims to "make mincemeat of the Christians." Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/asia/05briefs-Pakistan.html ------- Pak clerics say suicide bombings against teachings of Islam   LAHORE - The desecration of mosques, imambargahs and other places of worship and the killing of innocent people through suicide attacks and remote-controlled bombs is against Islam, humanity and Pakistan, clerics from all schools of thought have said. Under the auspices of the Ittehad Tanzimat-e-Madaris Pakistan (ITMP), they issued this joint declaration on Monday in a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif at the secretariat. The declaration said: "Any teacher or student if proved guilty of involvement in violence will be expelled from the institution and cooperation will be provided to law enforcement agencies and state institutions." It said if any institute were found fanning militancy its membership in Wafaq, Tanzeem and Rabta would be cancelled. The declaration said maintenance of law and order was a pre-requisite for economic stability. The declaration said peaceful protests against the government's moves against national interest, unpopular decisions and administrative inefficiency was the constitutional, democratic and legal right of the people. Full report at: http://blog.taragana.com/n/pak-clerics-say-suicide-bombings-against-teachings-of-islam-129967/ ------ Expansion of Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia Approved, Outraging Opponents    A controversial Saudi-funded academy that teaches strict adherence to traditional Islamic law has been given the green light to expand its Virginia campus — a decision by local officials that infuriates opponents who say the school's teachings are anti-American. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 6-4 Monday to grant a zoning exemption to the Islamic Saudi Academy. The officials said the outcome was based strictly on zoning issues, not on what goes on in the school's classrooms. That left some in the community outraged. "How could they ... say they are such fine students? They are fine students but they are learning the wrong thing," academy critic Ruth Mizell said after the vote, according to MyFOXDC.com. Jim Lafferty, another opponent, vowed political retaliation against the supervisors who supported the expansion. "We need to resist these people, make it clear they may have bought six votes in there but they are not buying my vote," said Lafferty, according to MyFOXDC. "We will support — even if it's Pee-Wee Herman — we will support whoever is running against them." Scores of people spoke at hearings in the spring and summer on the academy's plans. Some neighbors opposed the expansion because of traffic worries; others voiced ideological concerns about the school's curriculum. Full report at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,536624,00.html?test=latestnews ------- Islamic councils allowed fighting Catholic Church over 'Allah' By Debra Chong KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 – The Catholic Church today failed to block several Muslim groups from interfering in their challenge to lift the government ban on Christians using the word "Allah" to refer to God. The High Court here allowed 10 state Islamic councils to intervene in the church's suit against the Home Minister on the basis that their legal rights as advisers to the rulers, who sit as heads of Islam in their respective states, would be gravely affected by any decision taken by the court. Judge Lau Bee Lan, from the appellate and special division of the High Court, also allowed the Malaysian Chinese-Muslim Association (Macma) to take part. The 70,000-strong association, headed by Datuk Mustapha Ma, had previously argued that it was also an interested party because allowing Christians to use the word "Allah" to refer to any God but the Muslim one, would confuse its members. The Hight Court, however, barred the Malaysian Gurdwara Council from taking part, noting that the case at hand dealt specifically with the church's demands for the government to allow them to freely publish the word in their newspaper The Herald. Judge Lau, who made the decision in chambers, reportedly said the Gurdwara Council had failed to fulfil the necessary criteria to intervene as it had not showed Sikhs would be affected by the court's decision. Full report at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/34084-islamic-councils-allowed-to-fight-catholic-church-over-allah- ------- Malaysia A Good Example of A Comprehensive Islam Nation, Says PM Aug 05, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia is in a great position to share with the world its uniqueness of being a comprehensive Islam nation. "I am also proud to mention that we do this in a way that is shared with our non-Muslim communities. "Malaysia has many good examples to share with the world; a thriving Islamic finance industry, a comprehensive pilgrimage fund and administration system and syariah law to name a few," he said in his latest blog entry. Malaysia should be proud of that, he said, adding that he believed that promoting and sharing the way Malaysia managed Islam was one avenue to ensure that Islam could be understood and respected better by nations in the world. Full report at: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=430349 ------ Muslim group refutes terror allegations against Madrassas August 5th, 2009 PATNA - "Madrassas have nothing to do with terrorism," a religious group says in a report that also negates the allegations that Muslim seminaries in India are breeding ground for terror. The report by All India Coordination Committee for Madrassas (AICCM) said "a concerted campaign… to malign madrassas" had led to the deterioration of educational standards in Muslim seminaries. "A concerted campaign was going across the country to malign madrassas' image by branding them as breeding ground of terrorism. There is no truth in it," said AICCM general secretary Maulana Shaukat Ali Bastavi. Bastavi said an AICCM team prepared a report on madrassas after visiting different seminaries all over the country. "None of the madrassas across India has been a centre of terrorism," the report concluded. Full report at: http://blog.taragana.com/n/muslim-group-refutes-terror-allegations-against-madrassas-131295/ --------- Muslim families call for tolerance, understanding Margaret Wenham August 05, 2009 QUEENSLAND'S Somali and Lebanese communities strongly condemned the alleged plot by Islamic extremists to launch a suicide attack on an army barracks. United Somali Association president Hussein Ahmed also appealed to the wider community not to condemn all Somalis because of the actions of a few. "First and foremost, I say I condemn these acts in the strongest of terms on behalf of the members of the Somali community in Queensland," Mr Ahmed said. "I'm also appealing to mainstream Australians to be tolerant and understanding that this is just a small group who are not representative in any way, shape or form of the Somali community." The handful of young men behind the plot, foiled by police after a seven-month investigation, were alleged to have been Australian citizens of Somali and Lebanese ethnicity, who were recruited by the Somalia-based terrorist movement al-Shabaab which is reportedly linked to al-Qa'ida. Mr Ahmed, who has lived in Australia for 18 years, said between 2500 and 3000 Somali people, had settled in Queensland since the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in 1991. Full report at:  http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25883052-3102,00.html ------- Rebuilding Swat Aug 05, 2009 An ambassadorial meeting of the Friends of Pakistan has been briefed by President Zardari of the plan for reconstruction in Malakand. The need for such work is intense given that according to the people who have returned to Mingora and other towns across Swat, the infrastructure has been completely shattered. Destroyed road networks have handicapped transport, prevented children from reaching schools which re-opened this week after three months and hindered all forms of movement. Homes, schools, hospitals and other buildings are also shattered. The loss of business as a result of the destruction of shops has left many without a livelihood. The plan for rehabilitation put before the ambassadors is aimed to prepare for a ministerial meeting of the body intended to assist a democratic Pakistan which meets in Istanbul at the end of the month. The presentation made by Pakistan at the meeting will be significant. What its representatives need to convey to the world is that the task of re-building in Malakand goes well beyond simply fulfilling the needs of people. It is also a question of determining the future of militancy in the region – and with this, very possibly, the future of Pakistan itself. The militant threat it has faced in recent years has endangered the entire country. We now stand at a point where it has become essential to vanquish the militants if we are to ourselves survive and move on. Full report at: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=191443 ------------  'Muslims in Gujarat should strengthen rapport with Hindus'-- Mauala Haque Qasmi Aug 04, 2009 Ahmedabad: Mauala Haque Qasmi, the Congress MP from Kishanganj in Bihar, urged Muslims in Gujarat to promote love and brotherhood by strengthening their rapport with the local Hindus. Qasmi said this will help them win the confidence of the majority community and defeat divisive forces. He was addressing a gathering at a felicitation function organised by the All India Milli Council, Jamiat-ul-Ulema, and the state unit of the Congress party here on Sunday. He said there were certain forces that want to create differences between communities by imposing their ideology. But they will not succeed as over 90 per cent of the people in the country are secular and believe in the welfare of all, he added. He cited the Charkhi Dadri incident in which local Hindus had helped to recover the bodies of Muslims killed in a collision between Saudi and Tadjikistan airliners, and the Dabwali fire incident in which a Muslim trader lost his life while rescuing Hindu women and children, and said that these incidents indicated the secular fabric of Indian society. Full report at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/-Muslims-in-Gujarat-should-strengthen-rapport-with-Hindus-/497554/ ------ Muslim history vs. Islamic history   Is there a difference between Muslim history and Islamic history? I found myself asking this question while seated in a university course titled, 'History of Islam till 1258,' with an emphasis on political and economic issues. Our professor, a non-Muslim, had been dealing with Muslim students' complaints about the way Prophet Muhammad was portrayed during the course. Many of us wanted to know why the impression that most Muslims had of their prophet was not being privileged in the lectures. Meanwhile, in another course, a professor of mine is having a hard time  was trying to find evidence to support the theory that Muslims had perpetuated criminal activities during the battle of Badar. Hearing the professor's academic argument, I couldn't help but point out that this reading of events was contrary to my Muslim heritage and could be perceived as offensive. In response, the professor claimed that my view was idealistic and that, as a historian, she was compelled to view the prophet as just another human being. When pressed, she also explained the problem of working on Islamic history using the minimal, non-Muslim textual evidence that is available – some historians feel Muslim accounts lack credibility because they are necessarily biased. Of course, her argument implied that the non-Muslim accounts were unbiased, which is not necessarily the case. Full report at: http://blog.dawn.com:91/dblog/2009/08/04/muslim-history-vs-islamic-history/ -------- URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1607