Allowing sharia law sets dangerous precedent

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/27/allowing-sharia-law-sets-dangerous-precedent

By Michael Coren ,QMI Agency

First posted: Thursday, March 27, 2014 06:47 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, March 27, 2014 06:56 PM EDT

In a genuinely shocking decision it was announced this week that sharia principles are to become enshrined in the British legal system, with the Law Society of the United Kingdom publishing guidelines for drawing up documents according to Islamic rules. These rules would allow lawyers to, for example, write Islamic wills which will have the power to exclude non-believers and deny women an equal share of an inheritance.

The guidelines state, “The male heirs in most cases receive double the amount inherited by a female heir of the same class. Non-Muslims may not inherit at all, and only Muslim marriages are recognized.” Good old sharia.

In countries where sharia is central, people live in an oppressive, dark society. In countries where sharia exists but is not central, life is still controlled and intolerant. And sharia exists in every Muslim country from one degree to another. In Britain these proposals obviously won’t allow beheadings, beatings and stoning, but it does mean that civil law as we have known it has taken a massive step backwards.

There is far more in the guidelines, of course, and all of this is horribly regrettable in itself, but also quite terrifying in its consequences. We have to ask ourselves honestly, and without fear of physical or political attack, what this all means.

First, what begins in Britain tends to influence other nations, in particular English-speaking nations and especially countries with a British legal precedent and a Commonwealth tradition. In other words, there’s a good chance it will come to Canada and activists are already pushing for it.
Second, look at every other country that embraces sharia law and ask yourself if this is a superior form of jurisprudence and whether anyone other than Muslim men benefit from it? Certainly not women, certainly not minorities, certainly not the vulnerable and those whom the law is supposed to protect.

Third, this is about giving in to a religious minority group that shouts loudest and intimidates opponents. In Britain it’s just been revealed that a state school paid $125,000 to install a speaker system so Muslim children could be called to prayer. There’s separation of church and state for you. Muslim rape gangs have operated for years and the authorities have been terrified to name their religion, little Pakistani girls are forcibly married to their cousins, female genital mutilation is far from uncommon - yet in Britain so few politicians have the stomach to expose and resist.
So it’s really not such a surprise that lawyers have allowed the new guidelines to be accepted. We have always prided ourselves in the west on becoming more and not less open, more and not less tolerant and progressive, on including more and not fewer people in our legal code, on respecting religion but not allowing it to dominate the political, legal and constitutional process.

There is no distinction in Islam between mosque and state, and unless and until we understand this we will not be able to resist the aspirations of those Muslims – not the majority – who wish to replicate the system under which they lived in their countries of origin. Before long it will be too late.