Stealth Sharia

The Saskatoon Muslim Foundation is offering its services to resolve conflicts within the local Muslim community.

Saskatoon Muslim Foundation (SMF) would like to inform you that the foundation is ready and willing to play a positive role in the area of conflict resolution within our Muslim community in Saskatoon. Our community, Alhamdullellah, is growing. With growth come the positive aspects of larger numbers, more financial and human resources, and diversity in educational level, languages, habits, and background. But also increasing number of conflicts among our community members and institutions can be expected.

We at SMF, and based on actual incidents, strongly believe that we can and should establish a “home-grown” wisdom and mechanism to handle any conflicts within the community before growing out of scale, and before spreading outside the boundaries of our community. We commit to approach such issues in an Islamic and impartial manner to the best of our ability.

If you become aware of or you become part of any conflict in our community, please do not hesitate to bring it to our attention. Based on the agreement of all parties in conflict, we will be able to conduct mediation or arbitration in order to reach a peaceful and Islamic solution to any conflict within our community. Based on the nature of the case under consideration, SMF will form a committee of respectable members of our community to conduct the mediation/arbitration process

This violates a common foundation of the Canadian and American legal systems:  One law for all.

Section 15.1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

United States Constitution, Amendment 14:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Every person is treated equally under the law.  This is true whether in a court of law or through “alternative dispute resolution” including mediation and arbitration.  A mediator or an arbitrator is a “professional, neutral third party.”  (A mediator helps the parties come to an agreement satisfactory to both.  An arbitrator makes a decision which both sides agree to accept a priori.)

The key to both mediation and arbitration is that all parties freely agree to participate in the proceedings.  In a religiously based alternative dispute resolution, the parties may not be free to choose.  Some of those involved are pressured to conform to the community and to submit to the religious authority instead of to Canadian law.  This would especially be true for women.

All people are not treated equally under Islamic law.  Consider the experiences in the United Kingdom with arbitration tribunals (h/t Daniel Pipes):

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.

The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Who are these individuals to set themselves up as authorities?  The parties in a dispute are always at liberty to solve the dispute themselves without going to court and are free to choose someone to help them.  However, it should stop at that.  The courts should not uphold the decisions.  Islamic law is not Canadian law.  Attempts to establish Sharia courts were rebuffed in Ontario and similar attempts were made in British Columbia.

Don’t be fooled by the avoidance of the word “Sharia.” That’s exactly what it is.  Terry O’Neil in the Western Standard reported

that Aziz Khaki, vice-president of the Council of Muslim Communities of Canada  … says his fellow Muslims might consider dropping references to sharia law, and refer instead to Islamic jurisprudence. ‘Many people who are not Muslim, as soon as they hear ‘sharia,’ are full of misconceptions,” he says. “Really, it’s just a mediation process.” That may be the case. But many who have voiced their opposition to sharia in Canada are themselves Muslims, including some prominent Islamic groups, which have spoken out against its implementation. If they don’t like the idea, it’s hard to see how even the most culturally-sensitive Canadian can avoid being sceptical.

Reread the offer from SMF at the top of the post.  We already have a “home grown” mechanism to handle conflict.  It’s called Canadian law and, if this is your home, it applies to you.