Exactly. The judge only is referring to Sharia law to the extent that the parties themselves validly contracted (under standard contract principles) to do. It’s not meaningfully different than the judge’s referring to The Rules Of Bridge to resolve a lawsuit over who won a bridge-tournament prize.
Great analogy. I wish I had thought of it.
That’s what I thought at first, too. People can agree to use arbitration of any kind (Chamber of Commerce arbitration center, a rabbinic court, etc.) to settle a civil case. They agree to accept the decision of the arbitrator and, of course, the decision cannot be something that conflicts on some other level with US law (for example, you couldn’t agree to go kill your daughter for the sake of your family “honor” just because the mullah told you to).
But it says here that the judge is examining this to make sure it agrees with ISLAMIC law, not with US law. A US civil court judge has no business making a decision about the validity of anything other than US law; it’s not up to the judge to examine Islamic law and decide whether or not something is valid under that law. This is nuts.
He should simply have said that the parties to the arbitration had agreed to accept it, he had no jurisdiction, and if they wanted to do otherwise, they would have to file suit under US law. This is evidently some kind of internal dispute, probably involving property as well, so I’m not even sure on what basis they could file. But that’s their problem; it’s not up to a US judge to resolve on Islamic law.