Thursday, December 22, 2005

Islamic Sovereignty

 
In The Islamic Ratchet, commenter ik referred to an article entitled “Paving the Way for Islamistan” in The Daily Pioneer:
     Some 46 organisations accompanied by 420 Muslim luminaries have reportedly presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urged that agricultural land in the possession of Muslims should be transferred from the law of the land to the Muslim Personal Law — rather like the rules of marriage and divorce.
If this ridiculous demand is met, the country would lose its sovereignty over lakhs of land parcels. These territories would become quasi-wakfs. According to Islamic theology, wakf properties belong to Allah the Merciful, which make every property a micro Islamistan.
Article 43 of the Constitution declares that India is a secular state, which means that there should be a wall of separation between the state and religion. Moreover, one country should have one law, especially when the Constitution guarantees equality before the law to all its citizens. It was with this intention that Article 44 of the Constitution directed that India should have a common civil code (UCC). Unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru did not have the courage to face up to Muslim pressure. He, therefore, transferred this article to the chapter of Directive Principles, instead of making it a fundamental right.
As India travels down the road towards a nationwide rule of law, Canada and other Western nations are passing it going in the opposite direction. In the name of multicultural sensitivity, the idea has been floated to introduce elements of Sharia as a form of “Islamic mediation.”

If you were a Muslim woman — accustomed to the brutality and misogyny which is routine in most Islamic countries — what would you do when the stern white-bearded “mediator” arrived at your door? As the The Daily Pioneer points out,
     UCC is also essential if justice is to be done to Muslim women, who continue to be treated as chattel. In the recent Imrana case, the victim was raped by her father-in-law; and thus her relationship with her husband overnight changed from that of a wife to that of a mother. That the father-in-law had committed a crime found little place in the discussion.
However revolting the experience of Imrana might be, it would seem even worse if the context of sharia is seen. According to Holy Quran by A Yousaf Ali, a woman requires four male witnesses to prove her complaint of having been raped. In case she fails to do so, she would be charged with being an adulteress to be stoned to death.
No man can serve two masters, and no modern state with a democratic constitution can implement sharia for a portion of its population unless it violates their rights under that constitution. No multicultural legerdemain can find a way around this essential conundrum.

The Muslims of India demand, in effect, that they be treated as a separate nation. The whole of Islam — the entire Ummah — is the only nation they recognize. To meet their terms, any country they inhabit will have to Balkanized, divided up into different religious enclaves, each with its own laws.

Perhaps that is what makes Islamism so attractive to the Left, since to a leftist it is the identity group — racial, ethnic, or religious — that counts, and not the individual.

We would do well to remember the fate to which we are consigning the women of Islam, if we are to meet these demands:
     This description is consistent with the supreme principle of the religion: That Allah is the only God and there is no other god. Since God is essential for the passage of man to jannat or heaven, it is necessary for him to be Muslim. Incidentally, the woman has no place in heaven. The only females in jannat are Houris who do not mensurate and their function is exclusively to provide pleasure to men (Sura iv, Ayat 56-78).
The wife was expected to give birth to as many children as possible. To ensure that she is obedient, it was best if she was not educated. The other advantage was that an uneducated mother would not realise the importance of studies for her children. The consequence would be that the next generation also would not question the ulema. Women are seldom allowed to pray in a masjid, nor hear the khutba or sermon customarily delivered on Fridays.
Islam and modernity are a contradiction in terms…
The ulema realise the threat women pose to their tight grip over the ummah. Their ill treatment is the biggest faultline of Islam and this today is under attack.
Or, as ik said in the comments:
     The background to this is that in India — there is one law for everyone else and a separate law for Muslims called “Muslim Personal Law.” According to this a Muslim man in India can get four wives and can divorce a wife by just saying the word “talaq” three times in front of a Mullah…
The longest standing demand of the Hindu Nationalist parties is that there should be one law applied to all the people EQUALLY and FAIRLY.
It was a revolutionary idea in the 18th century, and it’s still revolutionary in some parts of the world: all people should be equal in the eyes of the law.

Ik also wanted to clarify the demographics of Muslim expansion:
    Your article would be much better if there was an additional column showing the percentage of Muslims in those countries around 1950 and the percentage now.
      1947  2001
India  Muslims  7%  15%
Pakistan  Hindus  20%  1-2%
Bangladesh  Hindus  40%  10%
In Malaysia the Muslims had 40% (the rest were divided among Indians, Chinese, etc. each less than 20%) and they declared the country an Islamic state. Now they have reached 60% and they are already caling for the imposition of Sharia Law on EVERYBODY. And Malaysia is held up as an example of a moderate Islamic country.
Perhaps Malaysia is an example of moderate Islam. Maybe that’s as good as it gets. A moderate Muslim country might give thieves a stern warning, and then cut off their hands only on the second offense. Or maybe it would demand more humane living conditions for its infidel slaves. Or allow women to expose their eyes in public.

But don’t expect civic tolerance or respect for universal human rights.

Islam and modernity are a contradiction in terms.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Regarding Canada and sharia - Quebec stated earlier this year, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no sharia in that province. Ontario also dropped the whole idea of religious based mediation a few months ago as a way of preventing sharia based mediation of family disputes. I believe the issue is dead in Canada. FWIW, the main opponents were liberal left women.

Mihir said...

An excellent pot - I am now a regular visitor to your blog.
You wrote that "a Muslim man in India ... can divorce a wife by just saying the word “talaq” three times in front of a Mullah…". It is interesting to note that the practice of Trpile Talaq is banned even in Pakistan and Iran.