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ISLAM: Is there a ¢â‚¬ËœChristian ¢â‚¬â„¢ Approach? A way of confronting the truth about Islam vis-a-vis Christianity irenically? Some notes from my recent reading: People Like Us ¢â‚¬“ How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West (Waleed Aly, 2007). Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy (ed. David Claydon, 2009). The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Mark Durie 2010).
Continuing…
3. Some Christian Perspectives:
The following facts/opinions are culled from Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy (ed. David Claydon, 2009). This, and Mark Durie’s The Third Choice are two well-written/researched books which ¢â‚¬Ëœtell it like it is ¢â‚¬â„¢ with what I would call a mainly ¢â‚¬ËœConservative-to-Progressive Evangelical ¢â‚¬â„¢ flavour. Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy is an up-to-date collection of chapters/essays by well-known experts on Islam – including Mark Durie (five chapters), Patrick Sookhdeo (two chapters), Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Elizabeth Kendal (two chapters), Bishop John Harrower and others. Mark Durie’s book concentrates on one major issue: Dhimmitude: the condition of non-Muslims (‘dhimmi’) living under Islamic rule.
3-1. Human Dignity and Freedom
‘Recognizing [Sharia’s] jurisdiction in terms of public law [in Western democracies] is fraught with difficulties… as it arises from a different set of assumptions [like the solidarity of the umma against the freedom of the individual]… Every temptation to theocracy, on every side, must be renounced’ [15]. Another view (part of the findings of the European Court in the 1998 case in Turkey, where the ‘Welfare Party’ wanted to establish a separate Sharia legal system for Muslims): ‘The plurality of legal systems would lead to discrimination based on religion or belief. Sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy’ [16]. One Islamic jurist’s summmary: ‘The Western perspective may by and large be called anthropocentric… the perspective of Islam on the other hand is theocentric’ [17] .
3-2. Apostasy.
According to the high profile Islamic Studies scholar Professor Abdullah Saeed (Melbourne University) the ‘vast majority’ of contemporary Muslim scholars believe that people who leave Islam should be killed. ‘He acknowledges that some Muslim countries today incorporate the death penalty for apostasy in their legal codes; that in at least one country – Pakistan – blasphemy laws “function like an apostasy law”… [18] . In a recent poll of Muslims aged between 16 and 24 years in the UK, ‘no less than 36 per cent believed “Muslims who convert to another religion should be punished by death”‘ [19]. This is all in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms the freedom/right of a person to change their religion or belief. A 2008 constitution adopted in the Maldives ‘makes it a formal requirement for all citizens of that country to be Muslims’ [20]. The Iranian parliament in September 2008 voted in favour of a draft bill imposing the death penalty on any male who leaves Islam [21] . Note however that many Muslim states have constitutions that guarantee religious liberty, although, notes Elizabeth Kendal, ‘in some cases this is motivated by the need to maintain positive relations with Western donors… The reality is that the Sharia prohibits apostasy [22] . Both Afghanistan and Iraq have produced constitutions that offer full religious freedom… but here’s the catch: it’s subject to Sharia. In Malaysia, everyone who is registered as a Muslim is thereby under Sharia law (which conflicts, as has been experienced in a recent court case there, with the religious freedom granted under Article 11 of the Constitution. ‘When Muslims present to the Sharia Court for permission to convert out of Islam, they are often sentenced to re-education prison camps until they recant [23].
3-3. Dhimmitude.
Mark Durie’s summary: ‘For [conquered peoples] who declined to convert to Islam, “dhimma” status assured the vanquished an institutional legal framework which guaranteed their religious freedom and determined their social and economic place in the Islamic state. In return the… dhimmis were required to pay tribute in perpetuity to the Muslim community (“umma“) and to adopt a position of humble servitude to it. The Koranic verse which dictates this fundamental character of dhimmitude is Q 9:29: ‘Fight against those who do not believe in Allah… and do not practice the religion of truth, of those who have been given the Book [that is, Jews and Christians] until they pay the jizya [head tax] readily and are humbled’… History records many examples where dhimmis were attacked by their fellow Muslim citizens on such grounds, for example the massacre of the Jews of Granada in 1066 and of the Christians of Damascus in 1860.’ [24] . ‘Like sexism and racism, dhimmitude is not only manifested in legal and social structures, but in a psychology of inferiority… “The situation, determined by a corpus of precise legislation and social behavior patterns based on prejudice and religious traditions, induced the same type of mentality in all dhimmi groups. It has four major characteristics: vulnerability, humiliation, gratitude and alienation”.’ [25]. A ‘fact sheet’ produced by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (2001) claimed that ‘Islam gives its followers the right to absolute and complete equality before the law’. ‘This statement conceals the truth,’ writes Mark Durie, ‘for Islam discriminates against female Muslims and Muslim slaves, and it glosses over the reality that the Sharia does *not* grant equality to non-Muslims’ but when Muslim apologists are confronted with such truths, ‘the reaction to deserved criticism, when it manages to find a voice, can be shock, denial and outrage’. [26] .
3-4 Women and Honour Killings
According to Rosemary Sookhdeo most Muslim leaders in the U.K. have spoken out against honour killings and consider them un-Islamic [27] . More than half of all Arab women are still illiterate, according to a UN report [28]. Arranged marriages are the norm within many Muslim communities in the West. One problem is is that over 55% are first cousins, and so British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than is the case in the general population [29]. In Australia it is known that some Muslim men are marrying second or more wives (in mosques under Sharia), with each wife given her own unit to live in with her children and gains Government social security support as a single mother [30]. It is estimated that there are about 1000 men with multiple wives living in Britain and another 1000 men with one wife in Britain and other wives abroad [31] . Female genital mutilation is commonly practised in 32 nations (of which 29 are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference). The Shafi’i School teaches that it is mandatory – just like male circumcision. [32].
In an interesting Case-Study, Elizabeth Kendal cites Muslim women who opposed the idea of any version of Sharia law operating in Ontario and Quebec. One quote, from an Iranian-born counsellor for battered women: ‘Here in Canada… girls are forced into arranged marriages through Sharia at the age of 13, 14 or 15 to men over twice their age. How much choice do these women have?’ ‘[Flirting with political Islam in allowing any version of Sharia] ‘is putting the lives and safety of women and children in danger. Shame.’ [33]
3-5 Blasphemy
There are laws pertaining to blasphemy in many Muslim states, which reject freedom to criticise or offend, in order to protect Islam from criticial analysis. [34]. In December 2004 Britain’s Prince Charles met with Christian and Muslim leaders… to broker efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on apostates. London’s Telegraph reported, “The Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue”. This was because it is regarded as blasphemous for a non-Muslim to criticize Islam, and this is grounds for jihad’ [35].
[15] Michael Nazir-Ali, ‘Human Rights in Jeopardy’, Claydon, op. cit., 47-49
[16] Kit Wiley, ‘Human Rights, Sharia Law and the Western Concept of Democracy’ in Claydon, 69
[17] Ibid 77
[18] Peter Day, ‘Australian Public Policy: Examining the Foundations’ in Claydon, op. cit., 7
[19] Ibid 9
[20] Ibid 11
[21] Ibid 12
[22] Claydon, 83
[23] Elizabeth Kendal, who concludes her chapter: ‘There is no place for repressive laws in a modern, open, rights-affirming, liberal society’. Claydon, 92,93
[24] The Hidden Currents of Western Responses to Islam, Claydon 30-1
[25] Bay Ye’or, quoted by Durie in Claydon 31-2.
[26] Durie, in Claydon, ibid, 34. See my review of Mark Durie’s book http://jmm.org.au/articles/23555.htm
[27] Claydon 97
[28] 2002, Claydon 99
[29] Claydon 102
[30] See footnote 37 Claydon 106
[31] Claydon 107
[32] Claydon 108. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing, Amnesty International – http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/stop-violence-against-women-svaw/honor-killings/page.do?id=1108230 , http://www.gendercide.org/g_and_g.htm .
[33] Claydon 192 ff
[34] See footnote 4 re Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law, Elizabeth Kendal in Claydon 82
[35] Elizabeth Kendal, in Claydon, 82
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