Students tackle laws based on Islamic rules

[Bill McBlueState]

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Professor Paul Robinson's fall seminar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School offered a unique opportunity for the ambitious student: a chance to make law, rather than just study it.

But there was a catch. The students' client would be a regime that has outlawed dissent, jailed pro-democracy demonstrators and been accused by Amnesty International of "endemic torture and unfair trials."

As part of a project sponsored by the United Nations, the class's sole task would be to craft an updated crime code for the Republic of Maldives, an island nation of 278,000 people in the Indian Ocean.

The code was to be based on the Shariah, a body of Islamic law that fundamentalist nations have used to subjugate women, crush free religious expression and impose personal behavior laws criminalizing homosexuality, alcohol consumption and sex outside marriage

CNN.com

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Is there anyone who's familiar with exactly what Shariah entails? Is it possible to meld Shariah with modern concepts of civil rights?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. I thought they were talking about the U. S....

But there was a catch. The students' client would be a regime that has outlawed dissent, jailed pro-democracy demonstrators and been accused by Amnesty International of "endemic torture and unfair trials."

To see FratBoy in public you have to be willing to sign a loyalty oath, or stand in a specific area designated for protesters which can be quite some distance away. IMHO, this stifles dissent.

During the latest protests against the Chimpster's regime, hundreds of protesters were jailed for days without charges being brought. Once again, I am of the opinion that this stifles dissent.

And, if I'm not mistaken, Amnesty International has had some rather harsh things to say about how we've dealt with American citizens caught up in the detainment web.

[JCMach1]

2. Yes, and many countries do...

As with any law it isn't Shariah itself, but 'the interpretation' of Shariah.

CNN is shilling against Islam yet again...

[bemildred]

3. There are four major "schools", and wide variations in practice.

CNN is whoring for culture war again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

Sharia (Arabic ????? also Shari'a and Shariah) is traditional Islamic law. Like most religious cultures, Islam classically drew no distinction between religious and secular life. Hence Sharia covers not only religious rituals, but many aspects of day-to-day life. However, this traditional view of religious law is opposed by modern liberal movements within Islam

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There is tremendous variation in the interpretation and implementation of Islamic laws in Muslim societies today. Some believe that colonialism, which often replaced religious laws with secular ones, caused this variation. More recently liberal movements within Islam have questioned the relevance and applicability of sharia from a variety of perspectives. As a result, several of the countries with the largest Muslim populations, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and India have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic provisions in family law. Turkey has a completely secular constitution.

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Like Jewish law and Christian canon law, Islamic law means different things to different people in different times and places. In the hands of moderates, religious law can be moderate, even liberal. In the hands of post-Englightenment readers of philosophy, religious law is relegated to ritual (as opposed to law in a civil sense), or even to just being history. In the hands of fundamentalists, it is legally binding on all people of the faith, and even on all people that come under their control. Islamic law to American Muslims in Dearborn, Boston, or Houston is a very different thing than Islamic law to religious Muslims in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gaza Strip, western China, Nigeria<3> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3667515.stm), Indonesia, or Pakistan. All of them are following Islamic law, yet it varies as much as individual Muslims vary.

[Bill McBlueState]

4. thanks for the wikipedia link

I'll have a look at that.