Thursday, May 16, 2013

Anti-Shariah Movement Gains Success


I screamed at my friend, "I will not go in that  rocket to the moon,"  and I angry," I will refuse to go on the rocket to moon" and ratched it up even further, " to hell with them, I am not going".  Then my friend calmly asks, "Have they invited you?" I said no. That is the point in the little skit. Muslims have not asked Sharia be implemented, and these Republican assess are screaming to ban it, that which is not there.  This site is dedicated to understanding Sharia and I urge you to read  Genesis of Sharia Law on this site at http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2013/02/genesis-of-sharia-law.html


Mike Ghouse

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By Omar Sacirbey
Religion News Service

(RNS) When Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a 2010 ballot measure that prohibits state courts from considering Islamic law, or Shariah, the Council of American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit within two days challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and won.

But when Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a similar measure, one that its sponsor said would forbid Shariah, on April 19 of this year, no legal challenges were mounted
Why the change?

The biggest difference is that the older bill — and others like it — singled out Islam and Shariah, but also raised concerns that they could affect Catholic canon law or Jewish law. Many early anti-Shariah bills also made references to international or foreign law, which worried businesses that the new bills would undermine contracts and trade with foreign companies.

The new bills, however, are more vague and mention only foreign laws, with no references to Shariah or Islam. They also make specific exceptions for international trade. All of that makes them harder to challenge as a violation of religious freedom.

“These bills don’t have any real-world effect. Their only purpose is to allow people to vilify Islam,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR’s legislative affairs director, of the more recent bills.

The change in language seems to have helped such bills advance in several states. And while these bills no longer single out Shariah, it is often understood that Shariah is the target, which many legislators make no secret of.

The driving force behind these new versions of anti-Shariah laws is “anti-Muslim bigotry plain and simple,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking on a panel in Washington Thursday (May 16). To those agitating for such measures, “Islam is the face of the enemy,” he said.

To date, Oklahoma is the sixth state — joining Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee — to adopt a law prohibiting courts from using foreign or international law, with some exceptions, in their decisions.

This year, at least 36 anti-foreign law bills have been proposed in 15 states, down from 51 bills in 23 states in 2011. While most of this year’s anti-foreign law bills have failed, several others, have advanced:

  •     A North Carolina legislative committee on Wednesday sent a bill to the House that would prohibit consideration of foreign laws in custody and other family law cases.
  •     On May 9, the Missouri legislature passed an anti-foreign law bill that goes next to Gov. Jay Nixon, who has until July 14 to decide whether he will sign or veto it. Nixon, a Democrat, has not indicated what he will do, and did not reply to a request for comment.
  •     In Alabama, Indiana and Texas, anti-foreign law bills have made it through the state senates, and are now either in house committees or awaiting full floor votes.
  •     An anti-foreign law bill in Florida that needed a two-thirds majority to pass fell one vote short, 25-14. Besides Florida, anti-foreign law bills have been introduced but were defeated, died, or are languishing in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Despite the losses, David Yerushalmi, the Washington-based lawyer who drafted template legislation used for the anti-Shariah and anti-foreign law bills, said the anti-Shariah movement “is growing every day” and expects more states to adopt such bills in the future.

“People see the threat and also know that a bill that simply protects U.S. citizens and residents from constitutionally offensive foreign laws and judgments can only be a good thing,” Yerushalmi said.

But CAIR’s Saylor said that victory may prove elusive for the anti-Shariah forces. By stripping all references to Islamic law, the anti-Shariah movement has failed to restrict Muslim religious rights. “In terms of substance, it’s already been beaten,” he said.

Nevertheless, some observers worry that even these watered-down bills could still be interpreted in ways that impinge on Muslims’ religious freedom.

For example, according to the Gavel to Gavel website that covers state legislatures, many of the new anti-foreign law bills specify that the prohibition on courts using foreign laws applies only to certain case types, such as family law or domestic relations. Shariah, as well as Jewish law, is widely used in these types of cases.


“While the foreign law bans are certainly less of a frontal assault on religious freedom than the anti-Shariah bills, they continue to raise concerns about bias towards minority faiths,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

“The bans cast a cloud of uncertainty over a myriad of arrangements, including family and business-related matters, simply because they have foreign or religious origins.”

She added that some bans on foreign law seem to require judges to reject any foreign law or judgment that comes from a country that does not protect rights in the same way the United States does, even if the case being considered does not raise any rights concerns.

“This could deprive many Jewish and Muslim couples of a wide range of benefits — lower tax rates, immigration benefits for foreign partners and the ability to make life-and-death decisions on behalf of each other in medical emergencies,” Patel said.

Even CAIR won’t rule out the possibility of future legal challenges.

“If someone tries to use these laws to undermine a person’s religious rights, we’re keeping all of our legal options on the table,” Saylor said.

(Lauren Markoe contributed to this report from Washington.)

Courtesy - Huffington post

Please visit www.sharialaws.com to an understading of Sharia Laws.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Disgusting Sharia practice; divorce by text message and emails

This is a disgusting example of Sharia practice, which is passed out as Islamic, Islamic it is not.  There are a lot of practices going on in the world, which add up to defame Sharia.

In the following article, it talks about divorcing a woman on whim, not only that, the Sharia Courts in Dubai and informal Sharia counsel in India have held out that the guy can utter "Talaq -Divorce" three times and the divorce happens. They have validated text message and email divorces. This goes completely against the principles laid out in Quran.  I hope Muslims rise up to restore Islam to be what it was; a just and fair religious guidance.

The Quranic guidance calls to wait for three periods time (3 months) to ensure that she is not pregnant, and if she is, the arrangement for child support and alimony. If the couple changes their mind, they can reverse it.

It is fascinating that this common sense principle is adopted by the US Laws while abandoned by the Muslim nations.

The site "total divorce" summarizes the system, "Some states have divorce waiting periods when filing for divorce to make sure that couples are absolutely certain about ending their marriages. These range from a month to six months to even a year or more, if certain divorce issues haven't been resolved. Some states have considered extending divorce waiting periods, especially for couples with children. Such divorce legislation has been based on observations that shorter divorce waiting periods lead to higher divorce rates. A divorce lawyer can further explain the divorce waiting periods in your state."

 A current divorces practice in Muslims nations is abhorrent, cruel and uncivilized to put a woman on the street at one's whims, and this is not Islamic. Islam is about mercy and kindness.
Its time for Muslims to rise up against this practice and speak out.
This practice is strongly fortified that even the erudite scholars and Imams of Islam are afraid to speak out, it is like going against the gangsters, it has nothing to do with education, it has to do with lack of common sense. In the US we have conservative PhD Christians who are as stick-in-the-muds as the Mullahs. Unfortunately, the public does not support these extremist American clergy and they cannot get away with their wishes.

 
Sharia is a good law if we can purge out idiotic rules from it - particularly about divorce, apostasy, blasphemy, and punishment for rape and theft.The civil laws of the nations ensure justice, the Sharia laws in these instances don't. Sharia Law badly need revision to match the common sense and the purpose for which they were created; justice with mercy and kindness.



Mike Ghouse
www.ShariaLaws.com
www.MikeGhouse.net 
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Talaq by text message? Muslim women cry foul

| 1 Comment and 1 Reaction
Sharia law, according to some Muslim sects, allows husbands to end a marriage simply by uttering the Arabic word for "divorce" three times. But a husband must wait the mandatory three-month period before it can take effect. Electronic media have created a new dilemma that religious scholars have yet to work out.
By Udayan Namboodiri

New Delhi: Shamina Abubecker never expected her marriage would end this way.
One afternoon, the Kerala woman received a short text message on her mobile phone. It was from her husband. The message contained one word repeated three times: Talaq, Talaq, Talaq.

Under sharia law, a husband can divorce his wife simply by uttering the "three T's", although Shia and Sunni Muslims differ on whether this can be done at one go, and interpretations vary even among Sunni jurists.

Now, internet, social media and mobile phones have added a digital-era twist to the practice, leading to complaints from those affected. The message delivered to his daughter was "totally unacceptable," Shamina's father, Reshid, told Khabar South Asia.

"We complained to the imam of the local mosque who took it up with higher authorities. After a few weeks we got the fellow to apologize and re-deliver the Talaq in the formally prescribed way."

Besides being divorced via text message, some Muslim wives are now encountering "Facebook Talaq" -- the practice of writing the words on the woman's Facebook page.

"This is a global phenomenon seen all over the Islamic world. It came to the fore in India last December through a case in Bhopal," reputed Islamic scholar Mushtaq Ali Nadvi told Khabar.
In that case, the wife was an educated woman who knew her legal rights. The husband faces a lawsuit and has been arrested on charges of dowry harassment.

Besides text messaging and social media, some men have sent notification to their wives by e-mail. That is what allegedly happened to Majidi Begum, a Delhi resident whose husband worked in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"Not being very net-savvy, my sister did not operate her email account much," her brother Imtiaz told Khabar. "When [her husband] came on leave in 2012 she confronted him and he coolly told her that he had divorced her two years earlier."

When challenged by Majidi's family, the husband produced a document that showed he had two witnesses with him while typing the three T's.

Divorce and marriage issues among Muslims are normally handled by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), founded in 1973. The country's single largest Islamic body, its membership consists of scholars representing different schools of thought.

In 2005, Shiites and advocates for women seceded to form their own separate Boards, the All India Shiite Personal Law Board & the All India Muslim Women's Personal Law Board.

Neither board has come out with clear positions on the validity of electronic divorcing. "In many cases local imams and muftis support this practice out of sheer ignorance or lack of understanding of the Qur'anic injunctions," Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Muslim Women's Movement of India) convenor Saifia Akhtar told Khabar.

Some scholars insist the Talaq rule predates Islam, and has its origin in ancient Arabian societies, in which a husband had the power to divorce a wife for any reason, and at any time he wished.

"This practice of the Jahiliyya (Days of Ignorance) is still followed among the Muslims of South Asia who divorce their wives by pronouncing triple Talaq in one sitting, often on flimsy grounds," Indian Islamic scholar Sohail Arshad of New Age Islam magazine told Khabar. "Recently I saw a case where a woman was given Talaq because she suffered from poor eyesight."

(Courtesy: Khabar South Asia | Indian Muslim Observer