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Friday, April 27, 2012

Shariah rule in the United States


Despite the paradoxical nature and the sheer absurdity of the headline, these four words are the naked truth. One of the best legal systems in the world — the American one — is subjected to a tremendous pressure from the anti-constitutional (as Americans view it) religiously-legislative system of Islam. For now, Shariah rule advances locally and the process is imperceptible at a federal level, yet the situation in certain states is clearly about to spiral out of control.

It all started with an unusual decision passed by the judge of Tampa (the third largest city in Florida) in a case, where both accuser and defendant were Muslim. Initially the case was tried according to Shariah rules by a local mullah, in spite of the fact that one of the parties objected against appealing to a religious court. American judge decreed to drop the case, referring to the fact that Shariah court had already passed the verdict. This was the first decision of a kind, passed according to the Bill 1360 — it was adopted by the Senate of Florida on 9 Mar, 2012. Abridged essence of this legal pettifogging masterpiece goes as follows: legislators of Florida decided to reduce the use of foreign laws at the U.S. soil and passed the bill, which forbids using it in the cases that consider the violations of basic rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Court of Tampa has displayed a creative approach, decreeing that according to the said Bill, non-American laws may be applied in the cases, where the rights and freedoms of American citizens are not infringed upon. Such diverse public organizations as CAIR[1] and ADL[2] have stood up against the notorious Bill, albeit for different reasons. ADL Director Abraham Foxman believes that adoption of the Bill threatens the freedoms of all citizens of Florida. In fact, the Bill 1360 was passed in order to confine the jurisdiction of religious courts and prevent their infringement upon the competence of federal and constitutional right. However, not only the Senate of Florida has indirectly acknowledged the existence of religious courts at American soil, it has also left all the minor cases (insignificant for the U.S. citizens) for such courts to consider.
At that, neither Florida legislators, nor the Tampa judge have considered the consequences of their decisions even for a second — that Shariah law has essential and incompatible contradictions with American constitutional right, featuring the initially defined inequality of men and women (even less so — of children). The primary source of law principle also goes without saying — in Shariah law primary authority is Allah, while the source of law for American Constitution is the free expression of popular will. I beg the pardon of Florida Senators, but their Bill 1360 cannot be dubbed anything but a sheer display of legislative idiocy. Bill stipulates the citizen’s freedom to voluntarily choose the juridical instance and obliges them to submit to its decisions. No more than 1% of 18.000.000 Florida citizens profess Islam (which makes up about 180.000 people). So what was the purpose of this legislative circus that subjects American Muslims to the risk of being battered to death with stones? Shariah laws stipulate this, by no means facetious, punishment for adultery — not the most uncommon of sins among today’s Americans. Lashing for women, chopping a hand for thieves, crucifixion and hanging for sacrilege and homicide, compulsory maternity deprivation in case of divorce — all that are the punishments of Shariah law. It also features such “trinkets” as the “murder of honor”, allowed to the cheated husbands. The very concept of a woman, who may voluntarily bring the matters to Shariah court, are utterly ridiculous.
Arguments of the U.S. Shariah advocates are basically reduced to the reasoning that after 9/11 Muslims are often persecuted and sometimes cannot reckon up fair judgment in the court. Public opinion polls do confirm the fact that 46% of Americans are hostile towards Muslims, yet the idea to hold similar researches in Saudi Arabia or, say, Iran has not occurred to anyone yet. I wonder, what share of their population dislikes Christians — let alone Jews. Still, their rulers and legislators do not impose the Halakha courts for Jews (traditional Jewish legislation code based upon the Torah) or Napoleon Code for Christians. Extremist Muslim Brotherhood, which acts all the more briskly in the United States, believes the words of Allah to be the supreme source of right:
“Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path, and death in the name of Allah is our supreme goal”.
We are left to make guesses, how could Florida Senators pass a law, which actually violates the pillar stones of Constitutions and undermining the state legal system itself.
Weird as it may seem, they’ve found like-minded people in Oklahoma. In 2010 the state held a referendum on applying Shariah norms in American courts and 70% of participants voted against it. However, that is not what you call a pressing issue for Oklahoma: merely 35.000 people out of 3.5 million state population (which makes more a less the same percentage share as in Florida) profess Islam. Nevertheless, American lawyers are seemingly fighting for ratings, so vital for the future political career, and nothing helps your popularity better than a good publicity. It is a common truth that referendum is a direct expression of people’s will, which is the Constitution of Oklahoma should have been amended appropriately. Fat chance! State Court personified by the Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, proclaimed the referendum results running counter to the Constitution, while the State Constitutional Court supported the decision.
Muneer Awad CAIR CEO in Oklahoma
Muneer Awad, Director of the Oklahoma CAIR branch, has become one of the main heroes of this farce. It was him, who actively denied the referendum results. Here is his reasoning:
“In my last will I’ve denoted that my property should be divided according to the guidelines of the prophetic teaching of Islam. If I include the quote from the words of the Prophet, blessed be his name, into the last will, American court would have to base its decision upon the Shariah laws, and it would have been prohibited, had the state approved the voters’ will”.
Awad has also applied to the fact that the referendum has infringed upon his rights of a U.S. citizen, formulated in the First Amendment, since this would have meant state distrust towards his religion and undermined the trust for Quran and the teaching of Prophet Mohammed, which it draws its religious traditions from.
His opponent, Republican Congressman Rex Duncan, attempted to interpret the state Constitution amendment in a different manner: “The courts cannot refer to the legal principles that exist in other countries or other cultures. In particular, they cannot refer to the international legislation and Shariah rule”. Let the Congressman has the denial of international legislation — quite characteristic for the U.S. foreign policy in general — over his head, but we may hardly challenge his position regarding the foreign legislation systems (including the Shariah law). All the more, Duncan emphasized: “This is not aimed at Muslims — it is rather a preemptive strike against the application of Shariah rule in the USA”. Still, Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange remained rock solid:
“When a law that is to be railroaded through the referendum runs counter to the Constitution, individual interests of the voters combined cannot be deemed more important than the Constitutional rights of Mr. Awad”.
That is how Mr. Awad has defeated the much-praised American legal system and the U.S. Constitution on top of it. Are American lawyers aware of the fact that Oklahoma and Florida may be the forerunners of the collapse of American state? Today it is impossible to imagine the legal cataclysms, which the use of Shariah rule in the USA may trigger. This is reminiscent of Russian legal battles of the 90s, when the subjects of the Russian Federation, overstuffed with their sovereignties, started to adopt the Constitutions of their own, with almost each and every single of them being at variance with the Russian one. The process was put to an end only in 2000, when the much-talked-about vertical “of power” balanced the “parade of sovereignties”. It is difficult to imagine presidential representatives in each state in modern America along with the brutal destruction of non-constitutional local legislation. Yet, when the Presidential race ends, the newly-elect President of the United States of America (whoever that may be) will have give a serious consideration to the issue of restoring the united legal system of America.


[1] Council on American-Islamic Relations 
[2] Anti-Defamation League 

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