Before anyone tells me - I understand that for Muslims, if it’s in the Qu’ran that’s the end of the story and it cannot be questioned. Please read the following comments with the understanding that they are from the point of view of a non-Muslim westerner. (Or don’t read it, if you don’t care about what non believers think). It is said that westerners don’t understand Sharia Law and react unfairly against it – well, I am trying to understand it but this thread has raised many questions for me.
I have seen people say Sharia Law is not so different from US law. It has also been suggested in many western countries that Sharia Law could exist alongside western law.
When I look at all the answers in this thread, it seems to me that in fact they are fundamentally different and it would be very difficult to have them co-exist.
Firstly, as Ummshareef makes clear, it is possible in Sharia to have a different punishment for the same offense. This depends on the nature of the evidence, not the degree of the crime. This is a fundamental difference with western law and (if it were not in the Qu’ran) would be logically and morally indefensible.
Secondly, in Sharia the judge has huge power over the examination and verdict, but not much over the sentence. This seems to me to be the wrong way round. For a single man (and it is always a man) to have sole responsibility for assessing the evidence is dangerous. No one man can be free of individual prejudices and weaknesses. He may also struggle to understand some of the recent aspects of evidence (eg forensics). At the same time, one murder is not the same as another murder. There are degrees of severity (eg a crime of passion). To have no flexibility in the punishment is not human justice (even if it may be divine justice).
Thirdly (and this is a question not a statement), is there a right of appeal in Sharia? I assume not, because that would seem to undermine the crucial sense of certainty, that it is Allah’s law being handed down, not man’s. But perhaps there is a mechanism for appeal?
Fourthly, i don't see how joint law could work where some of the parties were Muslims, and some not. If a Muslim killed a non Muslim, what law do you judge him by? If you use Sharia, then the victim's non Muslim relatives would be given the option of giving him executed, or blood money etc. As a non Muslim, I don't want this option because I don't believe in capital punishment, and I certainly don't want to be directly responsible for firing the bullet. The alternative, the idea of accepting blood money for a life, to me is insulting and degrading in the first degree. So I would have to just let him go without punishment - but I don't want that either. I would be denied justice.
Fifthly, there is the nature of some of the punishments. Most of the negative publicity about Sharia has concentrated on this (because journalists like sensationalism). If we take the specific example of adultery, where the punishment is stoning, to a western person this feeds into a notion that Sharia Law is indeed medieval and barbaric, despite what some commentators claim. If I remember rightly that was the punishment administered to a number of women in Afghanistan during Taliban rule, when the main football stadium was converted into a kind of execution theme park and they half buried them in the middle of the pitch. This public perversion of a place of sport and recreation was bound to have a lasting impact on views. Football was banned, but stoning gets on tv.
Sixthly, when you look at the detail of some of these laws, it gets very confusing. For adultery, I learn that four male, Islamic witnesses are required to bear witness. This obviously strikes many people, both believers and non believers, as an extraordinary and unlikely requirement. The conditions of evidence seem random, arbitrary. It’s like saying, murder is a crime, but only if it happens on a Friday.
Non believers can simply react to this by saying this law is medieval or incomplete. For believers, this isn’t an option because the Qu’ran must be perfect. Therefore many believers have taken a different approach. They chose to interpret this passage as giving requirements which are deliberately impossible. In other words, this punishment is there in the Qu’ran, but only in a way that makes it very unlikely ever to be used. This is a very odd way indeed to make laws.
It seems to me that this is an interpretation of the passage in the Qu’ran, not what the Qu’ran itself definitively says.
It’s difficult to think of another reason why the Qu’ran has in fact laid down such an odd requirement as the 4 witnesses. Perhaps we could understand the word ‘witness’ in a broader sense (ie someone who bears witness, who gives evidence) rather than being strictly present at the scene of the crime. (But I am no scholar of Arabic.) Or perhaps in seventh century world, privacy was much harder (houses close together, tents etc) so witnesses might often be close by without it the act being a deliberate exhibitionism on their part. Who knows? Of course I’m just interpreting – but surely, when people say that this passage describes conditions that are deliberately impossible, they are also just speculating? They are ascribing a motive to this passage which may or may not have been present. The difficulty comes when you try to construct an entire legal system, covering all circumstances and all crimes, only from passages directly quoted in the Qu'ran, or possibly hadiths as well.
On a separate note, I would agree that western law has many flaws too (for instance I don’t like the US plea bargain system, or jury challenge). But these have the advantage of being capable of improvement, whereas Sharia Law cannot be changed even if it seems to be outdated.
I also think Sharia Law does have some advantages over western law especially in certain environments – I don’t think it’s all bad by any means. However, I understand that I have to buy into the whole of Sharia or nothing, I can't pick and choose. So that’s why I ask the questions above.
. What matters most is this system helps keep that number as low as possible whilst still creating justice amongst society.
