About this blog

In recent times a plethora of misconceptions, misrepresentation and myths have been forged about Islam
and Muslims. Many western influentials from politicians, policymakers to judges have taken it upon
themselves to undermine the Islamic beliefs, values and rules so to make it palatable to their
egotistic minds and the secular liberal thoughts.

This blog is dedicated:-

1. To argue the point for Islam in its belief and systems and to refute the misconceptions.
2. To expose the weakness and contradictions of all forms of secularism.

24 Jun 2009

Attacks on Shariah

Nowadays, every day in the media, whether in the newspapers or television, we find discussion about Islam and Muslims. The majority of this media attention makes us uncomfortable. People are asking why do Muslims believe what they believe, say what they say and do what they do. It can be difficult to know how to respond, or whether to respond at all.

One of the scariest words in the Arabic language nowadays is Shariah. When people hear about Islamic law, they think of backwardness, injustice and oppression. What does Shariah really mean? Is it something that people should be afraid of?

The word Shariah basically means the Islamic laws, whether these are to do with worships and morals, or economics and social relationships. The Shariah is a system revealed by the Creator, with an intellectual and rational basis that satisfies the mind and the instincts in the best way possible. This is in stark contrast to man-made systems that are full of contradictions and are always changing. Nowadays though, when the media and other people talk about the Shariah, they usually mean the judicial system of Islam, especially its punishment system.

We can summarise the attacks on Shariah in three main points:

Shariah court trials do not meet the standard of modern courts, which means it doesn’t give people a fair chance to prove their innocence

Punishments in the Shariah system are outmoded and barbaric

Shariah is biased against religious minorities

So how do we respond to these points?

1. Shariah court trials do not meet the standard of modern courts, which means it doesn’t give people a fair chance to prove their innocence.

We often hear the Islamic Shariah attacked as backward, and unable to provide fair trials, but the principle that an individual is innocent until proven guilty was in fact first implemented by the Islamic judicial system. As the Swiss academic Marcel Boisard acknowledges, “from Islam's beginnings the suspect was presumed innocent until it could be proved otherwise”.

The responsibility of providing the evidence is on the accuser not the defendant. This is derived from the hadith of Muhammad (saws), “It is the accuser who should provide the evidence, and the oath is due on the one who denies (i.e. the defendant).”

There is also a high burden of proof that is required in Shariah court trials, which ensures that there must be conclusive evidence before a plaintiff can be found guilty of a crime. As in another narration, the Prophet Muhammad (saws) said, “Avoid the hudud as much as you can. If you find a way out then exempt the accused for it is better for the imam to make a mistake in exemption than make a mistake in punishment.”

2. Punishments in the Shariah system are outmoded and barbaric

A lot of the attacks on the Shariah focus on the harshest punishments of which people can be convicted. The attack has been so focused on the punishments that the general public think that the Shariah is purely about a few punishments and nothing else. It has painted a picture that Muslims are sadistic, blood thirsty limb amputators that take pleasure in applying these punishments. As mentioned above, the Islamic Shariah established centuries ahead of other societies that there must be a high level of proof before someone can be convicted of a crime.
When a crime has been proved however, severe punishments can be implemented as a deterrent against crime. This emphasises to the criminal the serious nature of their actions, and warns others of the dangers of following that conduct.

In comparison to this, we now live in a society where people live in fear of crime, but no-one has hope that the system can really deal with criminals. The lack of serious deterrents in the west coupled with the western values of personal freedom and individualism has lead to spiraling levels of crime in our societies. Alongside these values, we have a system that no longer serves as a deterrent to crime, or indeed to cause the guilty to reflect on their actions. According to Glyn Travis of the Prison Officers Association (BBC – 25th Apr 2008), “Inmates are so comfortable in jail that they do not want to escape”. According to Travis, inmates are happy to stay inside because they can get hold of drugs, mobile phones and even sex. He said a dealer regularly broke into a Yorkshire prison by using a ladder to enter cell windows - but no inmate used the ladder as a means of escape. Is it any wonder then, if this is the punishment, that crime has reached the chronic levels we witness today.

3. Shariah is biased against religious minorities

The Shariah has been accused of being biased against religious minorities, because many people assume, the courts in Islam will treat them as second-class citizens. As Richard W. Bulliet, a non-Muslim historian notes in his book “The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization”, the Islamic system has been attacked in the west for generations, even though it provided an impartial and considered judgement on matters presented to the court. To quote from his book, he states:
Clear indicators of the perception that the qadi's court was in fact a place where justice could be found are the legal disputes involving two Jews or two Christians…Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the qadi.

In almost all cases, non-Muslims and Muslims are treated in the same manner and subject to the same rules of witnesses and evidence. The only exception is that in matters of marriage, divorce and religious practices, non-Muslims are left to follow their own traditions without any obligation to go to use Shariah courts. So the accusation that the Shariah courts will mistreat non-Muslims doesn’t have any basis at all.

Conclusion:

There are ample arguments and evidences for us to discuss with when the issue of Shariah is raised. If we are aware of greatness of the Islam, we should face shame to remain quiet when people attack any aspect of our way of life. If we remain silent in the face of falsehood, how then will the truth be known?

When we understand how the Shariah has been able to solve the problems of people in society for hundreds of years, we shouldn’t fear talking about it, rather we should be confident to debate, discuss and respond when people attack the Shariah. We should be confident to say: iStandforIslam – what do you stand for?

[Article taken from www.istandforislam.com]
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What they said...

“Islam represented the greatest military power on earth…It was the foremost economic power in the world…It had achieved the highest level so far in human history, in the arts and sciences of civilization...Islam in contrast created a world civilization, poly-ethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say intercontinental.”





[Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Orientalist and Historian, 2001]





"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600… Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage"





[Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, 2001]





"For the first three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D 650-1000) the realm of Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world. Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques and quiet universities where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the Moslem world offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk in the night of the Dark Ages."





[Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D (Harvard), American political theorist and historian, 1932]





"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe;it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills ,trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500's did the net direction of flow begin to reverse."





[Jared Diamond, UCLA sociologist and Author, 1997]



"No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races of mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of the East and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition."





[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Professor at Harvard University, 1932]





“The Muhammadan Law which is binding on all -- from the crowned head to the meanest subject is a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned and the most enlightened jurisprudence that ever existed in the world.”





[Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Philosopher, 1789]





"The Exile here is not like in our homeland. The Turks hold respectable Jews in esteem. Here and in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the customs, and the king’s revenues. No injuries are perpetuated against them in all the empire. Only this year, in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure caused by the war against Shah Tahmsap al-Sufi, were the Jews required to make advances of loans to the princes."





[David dei Rossi, Jewish Traveller 17CE, quoted by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands]





"The notable religious tolerance towards Christians and Jew under Muslim rule had given way to the uncompromising zealotry of Spanish Inquisition. Jews and Muslims thus fled Spain with large numbers of Jews immigrating to the Ottoman Empire which was known for its tolerance to the Jews."





[Graham Fuller, Author and former CIA, 1995]





“If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and systems of beliefs, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history”





[Charles Philip Arthur George, HRH The Prince of Wales, 1993]





"...Not being subject to the Sharia, Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the [Muslim] Qadi"





[Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History and Author, 2004]





"Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver are in our hands. We are not oppressed by heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered. Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap and each one of us lives in freedom. Here a Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow star as a badge of shame as is the case in Germany where even wealth and great fortune is a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect up your forces and come to us."





[In his book 'Constantinople', Philip Mansel quotes a rabbi in Turkey writing to his brethren in Europe where they were facing increasing persecution after 1453]





"Praise be to the beneficent God for his mercy towards me! Kings of the earth, to whom his [the Caliph’s] magnificence and power are known, bring gifts to him, conciliating his favour by costly presents, such as the king of the Germans, the king of the Gebalim, the king of Constantinople, and others. All their gifts pass through my hands, and I am charged with making gifts in return. (Let my lips express praise to the God in heaven who so far extends his loving kindness towards me without any merit of my own, but in the fullness of his mercies.) I always ask the ambassadors of these monarchs about our brethren the Jews, the remnant of the captivity, whether they have heard anything concerning the deliverance of those who have pined in bondage and had found no rest."





[Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-990 CE) Jewish physician, chief minister of Islamic Caliphate in Cordova, 'The Jewish Caravan']





"In Baghdad there are about forty thousand Jews, and they dwell in security, prosperity, and honour under the great Caliph [al-Mustanjid, 1160-70 CE], and amongst them are great sages, the Heads of the Academies engaged in the study of the Law…’"





[Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi in Baghdad in the year 1168 CE, 'The Jew in the Medieval World']





"Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the Rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.





[Leon Ostorog, French Jurist]





"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence"





[Robert Briffault, Novelist and Historian, 1928]





"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia"





[Oliver Joseph Lodge, Writer and Professor of Physics, 1893]





“Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution.”





[Zion Zohar, Jewish scholar at Florida International University, 2005]







“Throughout much of the period in question, Arabic served as the global language of scholarship, and learned men of all stripes could travel widely and hold serious and nuanced discussions in this lingua franca. Medieval Western scholars who wanted access to the latest findings also needed to master the Arabic Tongue or work from translations by those who had done so.”





[Jonathan Lyons, Author, Writer and Lecturer, 2009]