'Shari'a Law Has No Place Here'

(CNSNews.com) -- An Australian politician's comments about Muslims wanting to live under Islamic law (shari'a) has focused attention on the push by Muslim minorities in some Western countries to establish enclaves where Islamic norms and laws hold sway.

In a controversial speech Thursday, Australia's federal Treasurer Peter Costello said Muslim immigrants not willing to embrace Australian values should leave, and that anyone wanting to live under shari'a might feel more comfortable living in countries where it is applied, such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, "not in Australia."

Keysar Trad, president of the Sydney-based Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, accused Costello of "whipping up this Islamophobia again," and criticized his comments about Islamic law.

"I don't see anyone in Australia calling for shari'a law," Trad told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Last year, however, Abdul Nacer Ben Brika, a radical cleric in Australia's second-largest city, Melbourne, was asked in an interview whether he thought Australian Muslims had a responsibility to adhere to Australian law.

He replied: "This is a big problem. There are two laws -- there is an Australian law and there is an Islamic law."

It's not just extremists like the Algerian-born Ben Brika -- an open admirer of Osama bin Laden -- who would like to see aspects of Islamic law introduced in Australia.

In a meeting last April with the then minister of citizenship and multicultural affairs, Peter McGauran, mainstream Muslim leaders called for the establishment of a separate Islamic court, specifically to deal with Muslim divorces.

McGauran declined, saying: "The law in this country is secular. There's a clear separation between religion and the law and Australia's laws apply equally to all citizens, regardless of their religion."

One of the Muslim leaders arguing at the time for a shari'a court, Abdul Jalil Ahmad of the Islamic Council of Western Australia, stressed that Islamic law would not replace Australian law, because Muslims were in a minority.

"Only in areas where we are legally allowed to implement our Islamic teaching we do," he said.

However, Muslims elsewhere do not necessarily see minority status in a country as an impediment.

A book published by the Islamic Council of Europe in 1980, "Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States," instructed Muslim minorities how to work towards achieving domination of European countries through a policy of concentration in geographical areas.

Muslims were told to avoid assimilation by the majority, get together and build mosques, Islamic schools and community centers, and establish communities based on Islamic principles.

According to Patrick Sookhdeo of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, the instructions appear to have been followed, in some countries at least.

"The Muslim community in France is well on the way to becoming...a state within a state," he wrote in a recent article. "The only substantive goal still outstanding is the implementation of Islamic law instead of French law.

"Muslims in France have by and large rejected the concept of the integration of individuals and are working instead for the integration of communities," Sookhdeo said. "The same is happening in the U.K."

"Islamic enclaves would be defined by Islamic values, education, politics, religious practice and above all law."

In parts of Britain, "Islamic law is already semi-established, in that a multitude of shari'a

councils and shari'a courts exist which deal with family issues, effectively creating an unofficial parallel legal system within the U.K," Sookhdeo said.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian-born extremist cleric who left Britain last year amid growing calls for his expulsion, several years earlier set up a body he called the "U.K. Shari'a Court" and served as its senior judge.

Some British banking institutions are offering "shari'a-compliant" home loans and finance packages. (Shari'a forbids usury -- the collection and payment of interest -- and also prohibits risk trading.)

In an ICM poll of British Muslims, released early this week, 40 percent of respondents supported having shari'a introduced in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain, while 41 percent were opposed to the idea.

Shari'a is applied to varying degrees in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Its most controversial elements include death sentences for apostasy, amputation of limbs for theft and stoning for adultery.

Adopt Our Values or Go Home, Foreign-Born Muslims Told

(CNSNews.com) -- Australian Muslims already unhappy with Prime Minister John Howard's criticism about Islamic radicalism are bristling at even tougher comments from the man tipped to succeed him, who says any Muslim immigrant who can't accept Australian values should leave.

Anyone wanting to live under Islamic law (shari'a) might feel more comfortable living in countries where it is applied, such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, federal Treasurer Peter Costello said in an address to the Sydney Institute, a think tank.

In a pledge of allegiance, immigrants taking on Australian citizenship declare: "I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect and whose laws I will uphold and obey."

Costello said that anyone "who does not acknowledge the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance. As such they do not meet the pre-condition for citizenship."

Any Muslim planning to immigrate to Australia should first consider its values.

"Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes," Costello said. "This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks don't enter the mosque.

"Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objection to those values, don't come to Australia."

The debate in Australia over Islam and its more radical adherents has been picking up steadily since 9/11, becoming more urgent after 88 Australians were killed when Islamists bombed an Indonesian tourist resort in 2002, and focusing increasingly on homegrown extremists after last July's London bombings, carried out by British-born Muslims.

Costello, who is widely expected to take over the leadership of Howard's conservative Liberal party within the next couple of years, said anyone applying for citizenship who rejects the notion of living under a democratic legislature and obeying the laws it makes, poses a threat to the rights and liberties of others, and should be refused citizenship.

If foreign-born Muslims who have already become Australian citizens, having not been able honestly to take the citizenship pledge, they should be stripped of their Australian nationality if they also have citizenship of some other country.

In cases where Muslims were born in Australia and did not have dual citizenship, there was a difficulty.

"In these cases we have on our hands citizens who are apparently so alienated that they do not support what their own country stands for. Such alienation could become a threat to the rights and liberties of others."

Costello said for such Muslims it was important that the government engage respected leaders for help in explaining Australian values.

"Ultimately, however, it is important that they know that there is only one law and it is going to be enforced whether they acknowledge its legitimacy or not."

Costello also made a point of saying that among Australian values were tolerance of difference and the protection of the rights and liberties of all.

While he did not like artworks mocking Christianity, galleries that displayed them "should be able to practice their offensive taste without fear of violence or a riot."

Muslims, too, must recognize that their opposition to newspapers publishing pictures depicting Mohammed does not justify violence.

'Raving about jihad'

Costello's comments come amid a debate over earlier ones by Howard, who criticized a radical minority of Muslims whom he said "rave on about jihad" and hold "extreme attitudes" towards women.

Six million migrants have made Australia home since World War II -- a number comprising almost one-third of the country's current population. But Howard said Australia had never before had to deal with newcomers bent on overturning its core beliefs and values.

"It is not a problem that we've ever faced with other immigrant communities, who become easily absorbed by Australia's mainstream."

Publication of the comments this week provoked outrage from Muslim representatives, who called them "offensive and ignorant" and said they were feeding "Islamophobia."

Similar reaction met Costello's speech.

Muslims comprise only around 300,000 of Australia's 20 million people, although in the five years leading up to a census in 2001, the Muslim population increased by 40 percent, compared to growth of 5.7 percent of the Australian population as a whole, according to government statistics.

As in other Western countries, most Muslims are considered moderate, but vocal clerics emerge from time to time to espouse extremist views.

Twenty-four Muslims have been prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws introduced since 9/11. Only one has been convicted to date, a British-born convert to Islam jailed for nine years for plotting with al-Qaeda to bomb Israel's embassy in Canberra.

Mainstream Muslim organizations speak out against terror, while condemning the policies which the governments of Australia, the U.S. and other allies say are aimed at combating terrorism.

Spokesmen also claim that Australia's military role in Iraq and Afghanistan and its support for Israel are fueling radical sentiment among Australian Muslims.

In parts of Britain, "Islamic law is already semi-established, in that a multitude of shari'a councils and shari'a courts exist which deal with family issues, effectively creating an unofficial parallel legal system within the U.K," Sookhdeo said.

This interests me.

I'm slowly searching out examples from within the U.S.

From a 2002 New Jersey Law Journal article, Islamic Law Emerges From the Shadows:

. . . the case is being closely watched by Muslim lawyers in New Jersey. However Judge John Selser III rules on the motion, on which papers were filed last week, the consequences for the Muslim community could be palpable.
It will be New Jersey's first substantive ruling on Islamic law.
[. . .]
"We are concerned that if this becomes a battle, it is going to divide the community," says one Muslim attorney not involved in the case. "Up to this time I am not aware of any [previous] litigation involving Muslim issues."
That concern manifests itself within Muslim neighborhoods as avoidance of the American court system in nonsecular areas where Islamic law holds sway. In such arenas -- family law, for instance -- the parties generally opt to solve the dispute among themselves or with the aid of a local imam or a respected elder.
"Most people want to keep family disputes private," notes Asifa Quraishi, a Muslim lawyer who is studying for an S.J.D. at Harvard Law and who has written academic papers on the issue.
That may be about to change. As second generations of American Muslims become old enough and independent enough to retain lawyers, they will likely bring disputes involving Islamic law to the secular courts, Muslim attorneys predict.
At least two Muslim lawyers in northern New Jersey are attempting to mesh the interests of Islamic and secular law for the benefit of their clients.

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