Institution of Sharia Courts in the UK : A pitiful acquiescence of a secular-democratic state to the religious bigots : Md. Jane Alam

Institution of Sharia Courts in the UK : A pitiful acquiescence of a secular-democratic state to the religious bigots.

Md. Jane Alam

Published on October 13, 2008

Instant Reaction: It is quite an awful, unexpected, disappointing, heartbreaking and finally disgusting phenomenon to the enlightened people of the modern age to hear the news of the institution of Sharia court, in a secular-democratic state, like UK, for adjudicating the family disputes of the Muslim. In the epoch of such utmost culmination of science & rationalism, when the rationalism, as scientific values, encroaching all time-bared backward & tradition-trodden superstitious values & ideas of the societies gradually, as the inevitable order of the day, then this perpetration of the UK government is nothing but obviously a pitiful acquiescence of a secular-democratic state to the religious bigots, upholding the banner of medieval thoughts. Or it may be a ploy of some hidden agents to refuel the ongoing insurgence of fundamentalism throughout the world.

What are the Sharia Court & law: The court, which will adjudicate all the disputes placed before it as per the provisions of the Sharia laws is the Sharia court. The Sharia laws are the collection of all religious rules & regulations, which the Muslim are bound to follow. The Holy Scripture Quran is the primary source of these rules & regulations. And then Hadith- the sayings of prophet Mohammed and his performance, called Sunna is the next vital source & finally some consensus of the Muslim scholars & legal analogy made by them may be termed as the derived source of some of these rules & regulations. In these rules & regulations, there are some, which are to be followed only at the time of religious ritual & worship, which have nothing to do with the society. But there are some rules & regulations originated from the above-mentioned sources, which laid down provisions to regulate the relation amongst the members of the family & with their society, their mode of inheritance, attitude & behavior towards other religious group, economic transaction & business etc., which have a vital role to play in the socio-economic formation of the societies.

Hence, now to adopt the Sharia laws for a society in this modern era, the most fundamental question we have to meet, is not where these laws have come from or what are the sources of these laws, but whether all these rules & regulations collectively known as Sharia are still competent to cope with the present need of the modern societies? Let us try to examine it.

In regards to the competence of Sharia law: First of all, we can have an investigation in general, about the competence of the customs & canons of all the religions. There is no denial the fact that, all the religions, still followed by the different groups of the people in different countries of the world, had come in to existence in the ancient Dark-Age, much more earlier then the commencement of the modern civilization. Then in fact, the people were very much vulnerable before the mystical nature for their very primitive weapons & means of production and lack of knowledge and hence there was no any dominant social-conscience in the ancient society of that Dark-Age. Religions then began to emerge as the belief in super-naturalism of those innocent, ignorant & helpless people. In course of time, that religious philosophy had become to be the main social-conscience in the medieval age. Reasonably the entire religious creeds had been preached being based on faith and belief of the contemporary people to address the need of that contemporary time and hence all those canons could not surpass the knowledge & belief of the contemporary people. But due to gradual development in the weapons and means of production, capitalist mode of society had begun to emerge in the womb of the feudal society, science had begun to occupy bit by bit the role of social-conscience, of course not spontaneously, but through the severe struggle of knowledge & reasons against the belief & ignorance. In the consequences, after thousands of years, almost all customs & canons of all religions hopelessly became obsolete, absurd and ineffective to address the need of the modern society-much more advanced, complicated & diversified than the ancient one & rather have become to be detrimental to the liberties & human rights of the modern people in all respect & also ridiculous in comparison to the values & ideas of the modern societies. At present, we can�t think of a modern society without some basic principles, such as, democracy, secularism, liberalism, fundamental rights, freedom of speech, thought, conscience & religion. It is uncalled for to mention that, no religious customs or canons -whether Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindus or of any other religion, can cope with these basic concepts of modern civilization. Rather, it is not an exaggeration to say that, all of those religious customs or canons have already become to be repugnant to the essence of these entire modern concepts which modern society is based on.

This is the same case in respect of religion Islam. The canons or rules as set in the Sharia, are not now in conformity with the present need of the man. Today, Sharia has become a potent tool in the hand of Islamic Jihadist for the violation of human rights, oppression and exploitation in the name of Allah. Sharia has become a weapon for Islamic inquisition in some Islamic countries of Africa and Asia, especially in the Gulf countries. Sharia does not recognize equal rights of all human beings regardless of religion or belief. Sharia accords second-class status to non �Muslims. The Sharia laws clearly do not place men and women on level ground in seeking justice, acting as witness, in inheritance and divorce. Hence, in the then Pakistan, in 1961, Muslim Sharia laws had been modified by an ordinance named, �the Muslim Family law Ordinance 1961� in spite of the vehement opposition of Islamic mullah, which is still in vogue in Bangladesh. And set of laws stipulated in that ordinance obviously is not in compliance with the Sharia law. Subsequently some more ordinances had been promulgated in the decades of 80�s in Bangladesh, laying down the provision of family court, prohibition of dowry, prevention of cruelty to women, modifying a little bit in the law of inheritance in Bangladesh, also not in compliance with the so-called Sharia laws. Rather, many customs, such as Ella marriage (intercepting marriage to allow a divorcee to remarry her divorcing husband) has been prohibited in that ordinance. As per sharia law, a Muslim can divorce his wife at any time without assigning any reason, only by uttering the word �Talak� three times consecutively. But in the above-mentioned ordinances, it is not so easy now to divorce one�s wife without following a legal procedure, such as giving her a written notice of divorce, sending it to a council of arbitrator and having positive consent from this arbitration council, after a hearing. As per Islamic Sharia law, a Mohammedan can have four wives at a time, but according to new ordinances, no one can marry a second wife without written permission from the arbitration council, to get which, one is to submit a prayer before it and convincing the council his genuine necessity of second marriage, which is also repugnant to the provision of the Sharia law. Besides, the modern law of evidence is not allowed in the Sharia act. Rather to combat the testimony of a male witness, testimony of two female are necessary which is contrary to the provision of the modern civil law and severely detrimental to the rights of woman and also discriminatory to the concept of gender equality. It is due to the so-called sharia act, that the man & woman are still being executed to death by stoning after putting him/her in to the ground up to the armpits for their alleged adultery, which is still running in the country like Iran, Nigeria and other Arabian countries. Strangely enough, the allegation of adultery of a husband against his wife is enough to execute the wife. Can it be endorsed by any civilized nation? So, it may be concluded that all out attempt of bringing the Sharia laws & establishing Sharia court is the last though not least endeavor to erect the uncross-able impediment on the way to secularism & modernism for the Muslim community at least.

Its objects & consequences: It is very much mysterious and paradoxical as well, to find a secular country like UK, dominated by Christian majority in number, to comply with the irrational & dogmatic urge of Islamic bigots by instituting a Sharia Court, a judicial system of medieval age, to adjudicate the disputes of modern age in its land creating a parallel judicial system. It is dubious that there may have a deep-down scheme of fundamentalist hiding within the administration of the UK government to blow the wind- speed in the sail of fundamentalist campaign or it may be a willful contemplation to keep the Muslim community, already backward in all respects of life to lagging behind forever or it may be a modest but determined beginning of the deviation towards fundamentalism.

Now, the institution of Sharia Court in UK, in any form, with whatsoever jurisdiction, in the epoch of an unprecedented insurgence of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world and their massive campaign and pressure to implement so-called Islamic laws in their native countries, obviously will inspire and encourage fundamentalist to boost-up & refuel their blood-thirsty Jihad (Religious war) & it will exert more pressure upon the Muslim countries, still fighting for democracy with all their limitation, making very difficult for them to sustain it. Furthermore, this phenomenon will create confusion amongst the innocent peace-loving majority of the moderate Muslims, in all Muslim dominated countries about the necessity & competence of Sharia court as demanded by the fundamentalist.

What is to be done: It has now become to be the historical obligation of all secular progressive forces, regardless of political, social, cultural & human rights organisatons to launch a massive propaganda and campaign like a vigorous cultural movement against this perpetration of UK government, withstanding with the essence of its own constitution and to make to raise the collective voices of the general masses of UK along with the voices of international secular-progressive forces, throughout the world. As because, this is not only the question of establishing Sharia court in UK, Canada or somewhere else, but it is the question whether the fundamentalism will win over the secularism.

These sorts of attempt to institute Sharia court in Some American & European countries like Canada & UK are not separable from the fundamentalist uprising. Vigorous seminar, discussion meeting, debate, mass-rally and demonstration be organised as the prime tactics to boost up the propaganda with the slogans-�fundamentalism anywhere, is a severe threat to liberalism, democracy and human rights every where�, �Humankind can�t go back to the medieval age�, �Let there be light�, �light, light, more light�. Civilized progressive people of the world have no scope to combat a bombardment of the terrorist with a counter bombardment, but only to begin a philosophical & psychological warfare, much more persuasive then the bloody war, against their ardent belief & philosophy inspiring them to commit suicide in the fake hope of eternal peace & happiness in the heaven. Perhaps, this is the only way out to subdue them, not the aggressive & imperialist warfare of President Bush, which has already proved to be futile.

Md. Jane Alam, the Secretary of Department of Research, Planning & statistics, Gonoforum, Central committe, writes from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He can be reached through [email protected].