In my last post I talked about the fear that Sharia laws would replace or subvert US Constitutional laws. The claim is that Sharia has creeped into the UK and, if we are not hypervigilant, will creep into the US. I said that the UK is not really tolerant of Sharia laws, it is mostly just indifferent to Arabs and Muslims. I argued that this is based on a lack of respect and that if Sharia laws should impact “proper” Brits, they would rise up in enthusiastic support of traditional British law. But as long as female genital mutilations and child brides are restricted to Arabs, no big deal (this is not my view, this is what I think is the attitude of most Brits and explains why there are zero child-bride convictions and few FGM convictions).
A considerably more measured and thoughtful essay, “The Dangers of Anti-Sharia Laws,” was recently published in First Things by Robert K. Vischer, Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis. Vischer noted the difficulty of coming up with cases where Sharia law has been allowed to trump US law– he was unable to come up with a single case. So-called “honor killings” are treated in the US as murder. There is no exculpation based on Sharia law or Muslim belief. Moreover, there is no orthodox Muslim belief in support of honor murders–it is a cultural practice, not a religious requirement. Continuing to claim it is a legitimate Muslim practice will only further enflame irrational fears of Arabs and Muslims–fears of creeping Sharia.
Vischer notes that Sharia applies mostly to spheres of human behavior to which US law is mostly indifferent–matters of personal morality or even etiquette. And there are many schools of interpretation of Sharia–from very loose and liberal to very conservative and extreme. It is a mistake to let our understanding of Sharia be dictated by a small minority of extremists.
Vischer’s main point is that anti-Sharia laws discriminate against a particular religion and so violate the US constitution. That has not prevented Republican Presidential nominees from voicing their support for anti-Sharia laws. Vischer cautions:
Before Christian and Jewish believers support such measures, they should consider the way these laws not only misunderstand the faith of their Muslim fellow citizens but threaten their own religious liberty. Muslim Americans who seek to use Sharia are not asking the American legal system to adopt Islamic rules of conduct, penal or otherwise. Muslims have introduced Sharia in court not in an attempt to establish a freestanding source of law binding on litigants but rather in recognition of the norms to which the litigants have already agreed to be bound.
And this, he notes, is nothing more than contract law. The courts recognize the legitimacy of contracts, as long as they are not in violation of the US constitution. Just as distinctly Christian and Jewish contracts (between a pastor and congregation, or between married couples, or a will between two believers) are typically binding, so, too, are Muslim Sharia-informed contracts. However, if such contracts conflict with basic human rights or are entered into under duress, they are not valid.
Vischer challenges Christians to fight anti-Sharia laws, and the intolerance they tacitly affirm and enflame, and to seek to keep US courts open to religious believers and to religious beliefs (Muslim, Christian or Jew).
The anti-Sharia laws are just another tool of oppression, a result of ignorant fear of a culture. I have many conversations with my Muslim friends, and to associate the people of Islam with terrorism and honor killing is like automatically associating abortion clinic bombers with Catholics. It is an heated prejudice, and, much like anti-Catholicism in America, one of the last “acceptable” forms of prejudice. I like your explanation here:
“There is no exculpation based on Sharia law or Muslim belief. Moreover, there is no orthodox Muslim belief in support of honor murders–it is a cultural practice, not a religious requirement. Continuing to claim it is a legitimate Muslim practice will only further enflame irrational fears of Arabs and Muslims–fears of creeping Sharia.”
I am wondering if you could connect this anti-Sharia legislation with the current political regime’s anti-Catholic health care legislation. It seems that the goal of both laws is to neglect the culture, the faith of a people by imposing law counterintuitive, irreverent, and even dangerous to the cultural or moral profile of the group. Thoughts?
I thought that Sharia law meant the practice of FGM, child brides, the cutting off of thieves’ hands, the denial of the rights of women, and other unjust laws. However, Vischer says that “there are many schools of interpretation among Islamic legal scholars” and that “the political community need not accept whatever interpretation of religious law emerges from a given community. Secular legal norms can serve as boundaries without closing off access to norms that are imported from outside the legal system.” As long as Sharia law practiced by Muslim communities in the U.S. does not mean the importing of unjust laws, and Vischer argues that the courts in the U.S. will not allow extreme interpretations of Sharia law, then I think it is good for Muslims to enjoy their religious freedom.
Considering the level of justice in the American legal system, I can’t see why the political community is so up in arms with Sharia. We do still see crimes against women, as in the recent example of “honor killings” of wives and daughters. Do politicians really think that because a religious sect in part of the world might find it venerable that the crime won’t be brought to justice? A lot of the fear is that Sharia will replace or alter U.S. law, but it’s simply not the case.