Shari’a Law: Recipe of Disaster

Fabregas · April 18, 2009

Many people advocate the implementation of Sharia Law in Somalia. However, we should ask the subsequent questions: why should the embryonic Somali government implement the Sharia Law? What is the significance of its implementation? What are its benefits, if any? What are its negative affects? I am convinced that Sharia Law’s negative affects outweigh its benefits. Our modern day is extremely different from the earlier epochs—fourteen and some centuries ago. Ancient people had little knowledge about the world around them. They were less educated about geography, cultures, world religions, science…etc., and Sharia Law might have been applicable to their ways of life. However, it is, I believe, not applicable for our time, especially the condition in our country today. If one glances the nature of the Sharia Law, one finds that it contains not only a harsh and brutal banishments, but it also violates human rights: cutting hand and legs; stoning people to death; whipping; beating; cutting heads…etc. I challenge any reader to show me otherwise. Let us look Sharia Law in action.

Look at what happened to those who tried to implement Sharia Law in our modern time. A case in point is the brutal and notorious Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban implemented the Sharia in Afghanistan.. They denied women’s right to attend school; they forced men to grow ugly beards; they closed countless businesses (e.g., stores who sell TVs, cassettes, movies, music, pictures, theaters); they forced women to stay indoors; they stoned their own citizens to death without the due process of law; they permitted legally that men can marry 9-year-old girls; I can go on and on and on. The point is that these people, who were banished, were poor who were trying to support their children and families. Yet, without providing any social programs, the Taliban government destroyed their livelihood. That is, instead of focusing on elevating the poverty and illiteracy that engulfed Afghanistan for so long and enhancing and improving the living standard of their people, they waste their energy and their time monitoring and banishing the weak and the poor Afghanis. This is not to deny that Taliban helped to eliminate the robberies that engulfed the land, but they were more harsh and brutal. Their justification was simply that they were implementing the Sharia Law. This brutal and harsh treatment is repeated in Somalia.

One can easily recall the first time that extremists appeared in Somalia. They brutally murdered countless people. They immediately started to cut the hands and legs of those who were accused robbing people without any evidence. I personally remember and witnessed one young man who was accused as robbing people and he was sentenced without any presence of a defense lawyer. After his hand and one of his leg were caught, a BBC reporter asked the ‘sheikh’ whether they are going to support him and his family since he become a handicap. The ‘sheikh’ replied that they are not concern about his or his family’s future fate. Another vivid and horrendous instance is the widely reported underage girl who was stoned to death few weeks ago. There were countless stoning and cutting hand and legs cases that are not reported. These extremists closed countless businesses, as their Taliban counterparts. As reported, they prohibited watching football and movies and they forced women to wear burqas. The implication of this is that if Sharia Law is implemented in Somalia now, our people would experience a harsh and brutal banishments that they have never endured before.

There are some people who argue that the problem is not the Sharia Law per se, but the problem is the people who were implementing the Sharia Law. Put it bluntly, their argument goes like this: Sharia Law is a good law but those people who are implementing do not know how to do it. Their argument falls into the ground when one glances the real nature of Sharia Law itself. The problem is not the people who are trying to implement, but the nature of the Sharia itself. If you read any of the main schools of the Sharia be it Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki or Shafi’I, you will find that Sharia Law is simply consists of brutal punishment. I challenge anyone to show me that Sharia Law is not the way I described. Based on this conviction, we should oppose any Sharia implementation.

http://www.hiiraan.c om/op2/2009/apr/shar i_a_law_recipe_of_di saster.aspx

Ismail Hassan

Ismailhassan56@yahoo .com

Fabregas · April 18, 2009

Anyone take up his challenge?

Nur · April 18, 2009

Zaylici

I composed the answer, will post it later inshAllah

Nur

Muriidi · April 18, 2009

our failure to implement sharia law shouldn't cause us to try the opposite.the oiginal challenge was to implement anything at all sharia included.the concept of a human government in this age of enlightenment is absurd .

there was a man who used to sit @ his isbaaro and he claimed the power to punish and reward

now he wanders the marketplace,has no easy life(yusra)and everything he does is luggooyo even if it's right...should we cut his arm and leg off or take him to the prison psychiatrist and tell him the whole thing is subconcious manifestation of his selfloathing.

Nur · April 18, 2009

Great and Timely Topic!

I hope the writer visits this page to see this response.

Bismillah

I am one of those who support the implementation of Sharia in Somalia, I am a senior volunteer moderator at Somaliaonline Islam page.

The purpose of applying Sharia is to Make peace in the land, and it did it for six months in Somalia when the Islamic Courts had a control of land.

The Significance of the application of Sharia is that Allah ordained application of Sharia, and we are his slaves, if Allah is not significant player in running affairs of His creatures, then, who is it?

Benefits of Applying Sharia:

1. Peace ( in 20 years of civil war, Somalia experienced 6 months of peace under the Islamic Courts, and it was only the message that did the trick, very few areas were applied, while the Sharia encompasses the criminal aspect.

2. Legal Regulation ( Property law, Corporate Law ( Fiqhul Mucaamalaat), Riba Free, asset based economy that dos nit crash like the current one)

3. Governance: No system on earth has ever implemented Justice like the Islamic Sharia, every other system has beneficiaries and loopholes, Sharia is authored by the creator of mankind, cant be bought, if you do the crime, you do the time.

4. Sharia is the only law that combines a Constitution, power transfer, personal, business and civil law, war and peace treaties, food and drinks, family law etc.

There are no negative aspects of Sharia, Allah has no flaws, humans do when they apply. Sharia Law is authored by Allah, delivered by His Messenger, Allah is sovereign, which amon many things means, he has no one to answer to, and that right and wrong, good and bad are what He designates as such. therefore, if you are trying to set another benchmark to measure the Sharia, you are actually suggesting that there is another Sovereign, higher in rank than Allah who can.

Its true that our times are different, for example we have men marrying men, and women marrying women! which is tolerated by those who have no belief in Allah or his revelations.

Ancient people had little knowledge about the world around them.

Answer:

The fact that the ancient people did not have as much material knowledge as we do does not mean that they were intellectually inferior that we are, the ancient Greeks came up with the idea of Democracy that the west follows. But Allah has more knowledge than them, and than us , the Modern day people, and has sent Muhammad SAWS as the last Messenger, which means that message ( Sharia) holds until the day of judgment.

Fallacies that need correction:

1. The Ancients had No Education ( Geography and Science).

Answer: Do we know more than Allah today?

2. Their own lifestyle suited the Sharia.

This fallacy is an insult to Allah's foreknowledge and wisdom.

3. The Western Media Reports about Sharia Implementation in Afghanistan is 100% true!

4. Taliban represent the Sharia 100% and they don't make mistakes applying it!.

Therefore, applying Sharia in Somalia is Wrong! What a fallacy!

Saaxib, Unless you are your own GOD, I think you have to get used to the idea that you are a slave, its may not be comfortable being a slave, but at least, Sharia law makes you slave to your creator ONLY Does Religion follow our whims or do we follow religion against our whims?

Author seems to prefer warlords over Islamists, Are the warlords better than "Extremists!", they did not kill anyone last 20 years?, did not lead Ethiopia to annihilate Somalia?!

As for the challenge, to show that Sharia is not the way the author described is far greater than I, the authors challenge will be met though, not by poor me, nor by any other human being, this challenge is between you and Allah, no one else will interfere in this fight, let us see who wins at the end!

This eNuri piece may help the author. http://www.somaliaon line.com/ubb/ultimat ebb.php?/topic/3/233 7#000000

Nur

Sherban Shabeel · April 18, 2009

Just because the Taliban screwed it up, doesn't mean Somalis have to screw it up as well. Sharia doesn't necessarily mean reverting to the Middle Ages.

I mean, seriously, have you seen Ash-Shabaab floggings? That stuff is a joke. It's way more about public humiliation than actual physical punishment.

As for that teenage girl that got stoned, that was an abomination and I'm sure those responsible were dealt with.

bint hamid · April 25, 2009

jazakallah khayran nur for the great analysis of sharia law. now i know what to say when people start talking about sharia law like its evil! nobody talks about the torture and illegal punishments and things that are part of non-sharia prisons all over the world ESPECIALLY in supposedly free and democratic places with civilized legal systems.

jazakallah khayran Sherban Shabeel. i agree totally. you cant blame sharia because ****** people mess it up!

Ashkiro · April 25, 2009

^Actually people are talking about human rights abuses being done, the torture scandle by American troops is the main topic in the states at this moment. With that said, I don't see why there needs to be a connection made. Muslims need to ask hard questions, without feeling the need to point the finger at the West. I don't agree with the article, as Muslim I believe Allah SWT Knows best and the Law of Allah is Most Superior to all others, and Muslims should aspire to live by it. With that said, the Ummah has not seen the justice, peace, equality, the superiority of this law, since the end of the Calipha (the Four Rightly Guided Caliphas). Even with these great men as leaders for the ummah (May Allah reward them), there was in-fighting and fitna, and the killing of the Caliphs. As I've said, we need to ask ourselves tough questions, instead of just mouthing, Islam is the solution (which every Muslim ought to believe if they do not already).

Fabregas · April 26, 2009

y: Dr. Shacabi, California, USA — The Somali Temporary Charter or Temporary Constitution stipulates that we are Somalians first and then Muslims second. However, some Somali religious leaders are insisting that we are Muslims first and Somalians second and, therefore, are entitled to live by the sharia Islamic law.

The contradiction is these elected officials were elected through a secular constitution that is the supreme legal document of the land. Each official swore to uphold the constitution. After being elected, some elected officials now want that constitution subordinate to sharia law. Proponents of sharia argue that the constitution guarantees freedom of religion while opponents argue that freedom of religion does not mean that Islam will be the state religion and take precedence over the constitution.

When the Somali Parliament has passed to adopt Islamic Sharia Law , it in fact puts the country above the nation and its constitution. In other words, “freedom of religion” does not entitle Somali government to create an Islamic state within the secular state of Somalia. More specifically, the Somali constitution does not permit the adoption of Islam as the state religion but clearly indicates that Islamic Sharia is the only religion that country will be adminstering since Somalians are 100% Muslims.

Sharia Law is subordinate to the constitution and to impose it as the supreme law of a state is equivalent to violating and overthrowing the constitution. It is nonsensical for sharia to be superior to the constitution and to operate two sets of contradictory laws in any state, even if most of the state residents want sharia. An argument often made is that they should allow most of the people in a given state to adopt Islam as their state religion.

In practice, religious fanatics are selectively using sharia law to oppress the poor and women. For example, because the sharia law stipulates the amputation of the arms of those who stole, a Fulani cattle rearer had his hand amputated and, subsequently, bled to death. If we were to amputate the hands of corrupt Somalians, Morgan, Mohamed Ali Samatar,Gani and other known criminals will be amputees.

Sharia forbids prostitution and adultery. They will stone to death or behead adulterers. To avoid tempting men, women are required to cover their faces in public places. Male students are required to seat in the front rows of classrooms while female students sit in the back rows. Later, boys and girls will be required to attend separate schools. Men and women must use separate buses. Women are forbidden from playing soccer. Motorcyclists are arrested and jailed for carrying female passengers. Since soccer, motorcycles and buses were not invented at the time the Koran was written, religious fanatics are obviously using Islam as a pretext for oppressing women.

They will order all unmarried ladies to find a husband or lose their employments with the state government while they allow unmarried men to keep their jobs. Anybody caught drinking will be publicly flogged. They can award only men with beards government contracts.

The Somalian Muslim fanatics have become what the Igbos called “the outsider who cried more than the bereaved.” Sharia is not even enforced in most predominately Islamic nations such as Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey.

Efforts to impose sharia law in Sudan lead to a four-decade civil war that started in 1955. Today, the Sudanese government is softening its stance on sharia.

Since its independence in 1961, the military have ruled Somalia for 20 years. The elected officials do not understand the rule of law, democratic constitution and even the unconstitutionality of the sharia law.

Governing a nation without understanding its constitution is analogous to playing soccer without understanding the rules of the game.

Because the elected officials do not understand the constitution they swore to uphold, Somalia is drifting like a ship without a captain.

The imposition of sharia law will leave Somalia with its left foot in the Stone Age and its right foot in the Information Age without carefully examining the comprehensive and totality of Sharia Law Principles. It also needs a cool-off time to prepare the Somali Citizens by teaching the Islamic Sharia Law and what it entails to govern the country.

In conclusion, I am totally agreed on passing the Sharia Law, but not without having a concrete analysis how and when it can be done without violating the Sharia Law usage simply because one group of the opponents to the elected Temporary government in Somalia wants to impose their own agenda by using the critical point or switch light of Islamic Sharia Law.

After all, the idea of governing the country is a great idea and it is the only cure the tribal disease that has destroyed the country and the prople for so long, but the silver question is how to implement without jeapoardizing the time-line and the best way of educating the population so that everyone is supporting the government desicion and moving forward now and to the future.

By: Dr. Shacabi, Ca, USA

email: shacabi@yahoo.com

Fabregas · April 26, 2009

Shariah Law the Sole Panacea to all our Problems

by Idris Ahmed Osman

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Nowadays I have been contemplating to shed light on the delicate and sensitive line between the perfect ideals and abusive misconception. There shall always be a challenge between the truth and the falsehood. No doubt, the truth shall prevail.

For those who are oblivious but with sincere intention, the best way to tackle the current misconception and mishandling is to advice and boycott on resistance the abusive wrong-doer while blocking the opportunistic Islamophobic propagandists. I know the identity of the latter and their inconspicuous ruse which resembles: Between the two litigants, the third benefits. The third Islomophobe party is always in ambush to seize opportunities to defame and satirize Islam with baseless rumours as weak as the flimsy spider-web. In other words, fishing in troubled waters.

Unfortunately some critics, driven by emotional true spirit of defending Islam, go extreme negative length to restore the image of Islam in the non-Muslim West or East. Reflecting on certain individual or group actions, they fail to filter it from the ideal application of Islam based on knowledge and wisdom.

Shari’ah Law recipe of Disaster by so called Ismael Hasan was not worthy of rebuttal.

It is evident apostasy but unfortunately as the well-known statement goes: Apostasy without Abu-Bakr- Riddatun Laa Abaa-Bakara Lahaa (The blessed first caliph who put an end to temporary apostasy spun by heretics and idolaters). One insults the best of all creation Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam, another pokes his nose in the grandeur of divine law. Etc. Alas, over the dead body of Waa-mu’tesmaah!.

The matter of the fact is that these Islamophobes are equal or even much less, to talk against the Shari’ah, than the fly which landed on the back of an elephant to reach its destination; on getting off, it said to the elephant: Please keep yourself firm, lest you jerk and fall when I disembark. The elephant replied: I did not notice when and where you landed on me, how come I feel when you leave me. Were you more than a very tiny and trivial fly!.

Carrying same finger-prints and landmark of the apostate Islamophobes, Ismael Hasan spoke of nonsense. I of myself can have no other third explanation to his deplorable and nauseating status than these two:

Ignorant of what Shari’ah is and the dangerous consequences of his statements

Deliberate attempt of renegade infidel with hidden Islamophobic agenda

What is Shari’ah?

Sharia is the body of Islamic religious law. The term means "way" or "path to the water source"; it is the legal framework within which the public and private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on fiqh (Islamic principles of jurisprudence) and for Muslims living outside the domain. Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business, contracts, family, private family life, hygiene, social issues, etc.

Shariah implementation in Muslim world rendered great thinkers like George Bernard Shaw doting over its leader Muhammad: “He must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it much needed peace and happiness”.

Thomas Carlyle in his (Heroes and Hero-worship), was simply amazed as to: “How one man single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades.”

Lamartine, Histoire de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol II, pp. 276-77: “If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?

W. Montgomery, Mohammad at Mecca, Oxford 1953, p. 52: “His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement – all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.”

Whenever we deal with our internal problems, it is always wise to be aware of giving loopholes to these external Islamophobes who camouflage in our identity. The socio-political situation in Somalia is at its peak of turbulence. We supplicate to Allah the Almighty to bring peace and prosperity to it. It is sheer manifestation of the verse:

30:41 Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their deeds: in order that they may turn back (from Evil).

There are two negative factors dominating the whole scenario:

Ignorance

External influence

For the first, reckless killings of innocent Muslims and non Muslims have no place in our religion. The sanctity of the Muslim blood and dignity per se is more valuable than the Kaabah. Ibnu Abas radhiyallahu anhu is very adamant in interpreting in Surah Annisaa on the eternal abode of hell fire for the killer of a believer, that there is no repentance for the killer. Imam Tarmidhi reports that the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam said: “Even if all the creation on earth and in heavens plotted and killed a Muslim, He (Allah) would have thrown them all in hell fire, not caring about them”. A matter so complicated to this extent should be taken extremely serious.

For the other, most of the heinous crimes committed against innocents have either external accomplice or culprit. In Afghanistan, many Taleban look-alike groups were formed, who perpetrated on purpose abominable crimes in front of the camera. As one commentator said, unfortunately these pseudo-Taleban groups forgot to wind their turban as genuine Taleban do. This article in BBC says it all on opium growth under Taleban rule: Under the hardline Islamic government of the Taleban, which ruled from the mid-1990s till deposed by the US-led coalition in late 2001, opium production declined sharply. http://news.bbc.co.u k/1/hi/business/3343 279.stm

This is a global phenomenon. When the FIS party in Algeria democratically won the election, the Algerian people rallied behind it. Support for Shairi’ah mounted dramatically nationwide. No sooner was it alarmed as a sign of coming danger (Islamic Shari’ah) than FIS look-alike secret elite commandos started to massacre the public overnight, carried out explosions, accusing FIS party. The public anti-FIS sentiment was set to culminate to its opposite.

I wonder why not similar groups in our country take lesson and precaution from previous events?!. Yet give no chances to these disgraced Islamophobes.

O’ my Lord, bestow peace, prosperity and everlasting blessings to our people.

Fabregas · April 26, 2009