This past week saw several things happening. In the midst of the voting, for new control of the government, there was also a vote on Islamic law in our courts.
Voters in Oklahoma have decided to ensure that Islamic Sharia law cannot gain a foothold in their state courts.
The vote came in a night of drama in the US midterm elections, in which the state of California also rejected moves to legalise cannabis.
Oklahoma voters gave a resounding ‘no’ to Sharia, with 70 per cent backing Republican Rex Duncan’s move to ban state courts from using international or Sharia law.A Muslim civil rights activist is suing the state of Oklahoma over its new voter-approved measure banning Islamic law, also known as Sharia, and international law from the state's courts.
Muneer Awad, director of the state's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), charges that the law violates the First Amendment's ban on the government establishing religion. Awad also argues that the law stigmatizes Muslims by singling out Islam for the ban and no other religion, and that the perceived threat of Sharia overtaking state law does not actually exist.One law professor told CNN the law is a "mess" that will cause a confusing tangle in the courts.
"Many of us who understand the law are scratching our heads this morning, laughing so we don't cry," University of Oklahoma law professor Rick Tepker said after the measure passed with 70 percent of the vote. "I would like to see Oklahoma politicians explain if this means that the courts can no longer consider the Ten Commandments. Isn't that a precept of another culture and another nation? The result of this is that judges aren't going to know when and how they can look at sources of American law that were international law in origin."
CAIR argues that the language of this law is so sweeping it may "prevent Oklahoma courts from implementing international agreements, honoring international arbitrations, honoring major international human rights treaties, [and] honoring marriages and divorces from other countries."
So what is Sharia Law? Islam
Sharia (Arabic شريعة Šarīʿa; [ʃaˈriːʕa], "way" or "path") is the sacred law of Islam.Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such assexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Where it enjoys official status, Sharia is applied by Islamic judges, or qadis. The imamhas varying responsibilities depending on the interpretation of Sharia; while the term is commonly used to refer to the leader of communal prayers, the imam may also be a scholar, religious leader or political leader.
So is there a Sharia threat?
There has never been a case of Sharia law "infiltrating" Oklahoma courts, but believers in the Sharia threat point to a single case in New Jersey that was later overturned. In that 2009 ruling, a New Jersey judge refused to grant a restraining order to a wife whose husband forced sex on her. The decision favored the husband's argument that the expectation that his wife would have sex with him "was consistent with his [religious] practices."
An appeals court overturned the judge's decision, citing the Supreme Court precedent set in a case in which a Mormon man was not allowed to have multiple wives because U.S. law trumps religious belief. All courts are bound by that precedent.
But the abrogation of the New Jersey decision hasn't stopped Oklahoma lawmakers from believing they need to make sure Sharia law doesn't gain a foothold in their state. The case has also fueled the lucrative cottage industry of conservative pundits who warn about a Sharia threat in the country.
"The fact that Sharia law was even considered anywhere in the United States is enough for me," Oklahoma state senator Anthony Sykes told CNN. "It should scare anyone that any judge in America would consider using that as precedent."
Judges do occasionally reference international law in their decisions, the Wall Street Journal points out. In the Supreme Court's review of Washington's ban on assisted suicide, for example, "Chief Justice William Rehnquist cited court decisions from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia and New Zealand," the Journal notes.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said that cases from international law are of course not binding on any U.S. judge, but "they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions."
The rise of Sharia fears
The liberal blog Thinkprogress notes that fears of Sharia law used to be on the fringes of the conservative movement, but more recent alarms over the alleged Sharia threat from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich have helped bring the issue into the mainstream. Protests against mosques around the country were on the rise this summer.
In September, Frank Gaffney, president of the nonprofit Center for Security Policy, released a report calledSharia: The Threat to America, arguing that radical Muslims are trying to institute Sharia in this country.
Brannon Wheeler, history professor and director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the United States Naval Academy, told The Tennessean newspaper that Gaffney's report is misleading.
"He makes the Sharia look absurd and insidious by trolling through and finding outrageous rulings and then making them universal for all time," Wheeler said. "It's ridiculous."
Wheeler also said Sharia comes from scholars' interpretations of the Quran, and thus is not one set code of law that applies to every Muslim.
"There's no text that is entitled 'The Sharia,' " Wheeler said. "It's not a code of law. It's not like you could go to the library and get the 12 volumes of Sharia law."
Proponents of a ban on Sharia point to horrifying judicial decisions in fundamentalist Muslim countries as reason enough. For example, judges in the United Arab Emirates recently ruled that men may physically "discipline" wives and children so long as they don't leave visible marks. Still, Western societies that permit Sharia among Muslim communities haven't opened any evident window to a threatened Islamic takeover. TheUK Daily Mail reports that Britain recognizes Islamic courts as forums for "community disputes involving minor disagreements or matters not considered appropriate for conventional legal measures."
Of Oklahoma's 3.7 million residents, about 15,000 are Muslim, and Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population.
Can our constitutional law that we have here in America and Sharia law co-exist? I don't think so
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