After having been married off to a man more than three times her age, who would beat her into submission and forced her to have sex, 10-year-old Nujood Ali traveled to court and told the Yemeni jurist, "I came to get a divorce." News reporters packed the courtroom on June to hear the judge verbally condemn the husband. But in a nation where 52% of girls are married by age 18, according to a 2006 study conducted by Sana University, what would be his legal ruling? According to a recent CNN report, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Based on the tenets of islamic sharia law, Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200. The human rights lawyer representing her, donated the money. But Nujood didn't mind; she got her divorce.
This primitivism, that characterizes islamic society may still be distant to many Americans, but in the rest of the world it is a growing political force. The Brookings Institution reported that there are only "15 million Muslims [in] the European Union (EU) [whereas] up to three times as many live in the United States...". Yet, islamic law is already the third most common legal system in the world. Furthermore, the British publication, Telegraph, recently reported that sharia courts have been operating in Britain to rule on disputes between Muslims for more than a year. Is this legal dualism imminent in the US?
A nation's constitution is a document that must reiterate the commonly accepted values, and ethics of a culture, and translate them into social concepts that underpin the nation's political and legal premises. The American constitution is such a document that embraces the ideals of the enlightenment derived from man's nature. For example, the Bill of Rights starts with the phrase, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
Depending on how well they are understood and respected by the men who act on them, the consequences of these premises are evident. Americans are protected from the infringement of their rights via force or fraud. They are given the benefit of the doubt, or are innocent until proven guilty under a fair trial. A trial must weigh the evidence objectively against a jury. Defendants are guaranteed legal counsel and if they disagree with the verdict they can attempt to appeal. If the law itself is in question, the Supreme Court is responsible for judging its objectivity ie. its constitutionality.
However, other primitive societies, like those within Islamabad, are nowhere near agreeing upon a constitution because of a blatant disregard for the nature and importance of rational political philosophy. Under islamic "jurisprudence", principles are subjugated for scripture (the quran), the actions and thoughts of muhammad and his friends (the hadith), consensus ("ijma") and reasoning by analogy, aged interpretation and debate "qiyas". This prevailing legal mysticism, known as sharia provides laws that are not static but floating, and do not protect, but instead "guide" (control) muslims in their public and private life.
This has manifested into an institutionalized form of evil. Under different interpretations of Sharia, men can marry an infinite number of wives, including young girls; under such laws, when a child is at that "mature" and "responsible" age of nine they are considered legally old enough to give sexual consent; and for those victims who claim rape, they better have 4 witnesses at the crime scene willing to testify (where the testimony of two females is as trustworthy as one male); any less and not only will their allegation be rejected, but they risk the possibility of being charged with adultery and face the death penalty; women are forbidden from entering prominent jobs, such as working in government; homosexuality is strictly forbidden; justice is served when sodomites are sentenced to death and in Nigeria thieves get their arms amputated.
Living under such savagery is virtually unimaginable and should not be tolerated by any civilized society. However, the number of Muslims in the world is growing and if the purpose and role of a rational, objective legal philosophy is not well understood nor respected, the "moderates" of Islam will have achieved the goals of the "extremists" far more efficiently.
