Sharia Law

Sorry about the belated follow-up, but the holidays were busy and it takes a while to formulate coherent thoughts. Here's a brief review, Muslims in the Netherlands are asking for Sharia Law to be implemented. I don't fully understand what is being requested of the Dutch government, so I'm not going to comment on specifics. Additionally, there are probably many different factions asking for many different things. So, if I were to respond to some specific group, there would be another group trying to implement something totally different. So, to make this easy, I'm going to make a laundry list of different iterations, and comment on them. You can call them strawmen if you wish, but I like to think they are pretty reasonable strawmen.

Here goes:

1) A Muslim Community, say a group of mosques, could set up a kind of court to determine right doctrine and to administer church discipline. Christian churches already do this within their own denominations. The reason this is acceptable to me is probably the same reason it is not an acceptable compromise to some Muslims in the Netherlands: you can opt out. If you don't accept your denominations doctrine or discipline, you can usually find another denomination that will. The only reason one would accept the discipline of the court would be to stay in good standing with your religious community. This is an appropriate way to govern one's own community within a democratic society.

2) A Sharia Court could be given the legal authority to determine what is and is not "Muslim". I would compare this to trademark laws. If your mosque claims to be Muslim, but the Sharia Court has pronounced your doctrine to be blasphemous, the court could file suit against the mosque for trademark infringement. This would be religious oppression, albeit somewhat minor. It suppresses free speech in that those that believe they have right doctrine would not be able to express those beliefs without fear of being sued.

3) A Sharia Court could be given sole authority to license Muslim Mosques and to enforce it's rulings. This would be comparable to the state church in China. If you wish to worship openly, you must submit to the Sharia Court. If you don't, you risk imprisonment. This is obviously religious oppression. Liberal Muslims that hold beliefs contrary to the state's Sharia Court would be forced to practice their religion underground for fear of being imprisoned.

4) A Sharia Court could be given legal authority over all Muslims. This would be SOMEWHAT comparable to the Native American tribal system within the US. They are given some autonomy to govern themselves, but they are only allowed to govern their borders (like a township), not their people group. The major problem with giving any non-governmental agency authority over a people group is that someone needs to decide who is "in" and who is "out". If the Sharia Court is allowed to determine who is Muslim, then they could declare that everyone is a Muslim and therefore subject to the Sharia Court. Would a Muslim convert to Christianity still be considered Muslim? Sharia Law demands that the convert be punished (unto death, no less), so that person would fall under the Sharia Court's authority by their own definitions. If the Dutch Government decided who was Muslim then the Dutch Government would be complicit in religious persecution. A Christian, Jewish, or Hindi woman would be free to dress as she pleases, but a Muslim woman could be imprisoned because she wasn't fully covered. What if that Muslim woman did not believe that the hijab was still a moral imperative in today's society? Should she be subject to a Sharia Court that does not hold her same values simply because they both happen to call themselves Muslim? This kind of situation is totally incompatible with a fully democratic society as it applies rights differently based on race and religion.

5) Sharia Law could be codified into Dutch Law and apply to everyone, Muslim or not. I would hope that the religious oppression present under this situation would be obvious to even the most casual observer. Any Muslims that convert to Christianity would fear the death penalty. All citizens would be forced to submit to Muslim traditions. At this point, the democracy present in the Netherlands would no longer be a democracy. It could only be even remotely considered a democracy if the demographics of the Netherlands were such that the majority of the citizenry desired Sharia Law. It could not import Sharia Law in it's entirety, however, and still be considered a free democracy. I would compare it to the antebellum South. It was a free democracy for white property-owning men, but not for racial minorities and women.

Let me wrap this up. Ultimately, establishing a Sharia Court in the Netherlands is going to hurt the rights of Muslims more than any other people group. Non-traditional Muslims will be persecuted long before non-Muslims will be. While it could be considered democratic for the Hague to codify certain Muslim values by defining indecent exposure according to Muslim standards or prohibiting the sale of alcohol, it would be could not be considered a free and democratic society if Sharia Law were codified in it's entirety because Sharia Law grants rights based on religous affiliation. So, in case anyone missed the point: imposing Sharia Law is not about allowing Muslims to live as they please, it is about allowing a minority of Muslims to impose their will on other Muslims and ultimately on the majority, Muslim or not. Personally, I think our inability to see this relates somewhat to our tendency to group people together. Westerners do not see the distinctions between different Muslim groups. We lump them all together. Since one minority group happens to be very vocal about their desire to impose Sharia Law, we assume that must be what they all want and completely fail to stand up for the rights of liberal Muslims that desire to worship freely.