Stop Sharia Law in North America

Islamic Banking: Is It Really Kosher?

2008-02-06T06:09:00.000-05:00

March/April 2007

Muslim scholars say the Qur’an prohibits collecting interest on loans. But many banks, both global and local, have found clever ways to meet religious strictures. It’s a system that may be hypocritical, but also profitable.

By Aaron MacLean
The American

The coverage can be a little bit breathless: “La finance Islamique en plein boom,” Le Figaro reported in September. Yes, Islamic banking, structured along the lines that religion decrees, is in full boom. But is it really banking? And is it really kosher?

Islam prohibits the payment of interest on loans, so observant Muslims require specialized alternative arrangements from their banks. Many of the largest global financial companies, including Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase, have established thriving subsidiaries that strive to meet these requirements. As a result, optimists speculate that the common pursuit of lucre—divinely sanctioned, filthy, or otherwise—will bring bickering civilizations together. They may be right.

The Islamic aversion to interest collection comes from the Qur’an. Not that the term “interest” is ever used: the Arabic injunction forbids something called riba. The Qur’an offers no exact definition of what riba meant in seventh-century Arabia, the time and place of the Prophet Mohammed—let alone what the term should mean today. In particular, the passages are ambiguous on the question of whether riba refers to all kinds of interest collection, or only usurious interest—that is, lending practices that are, according to some ill-defined standard, unfair and exploitative. What is clear in the divine financial critique is that, whatever riba may be, Jews are doing it. At one point God warns that they will face a “painful day of doom” if they keep it up.

This ambiguity was a practical problem for the early Muslim jurists, who formalized religious rules in a code called sharia. They were divided on the subject, but as time went on, the weight of consensus came to rest on the side of prohibiting all interest collection.

The financial instruments that 20th-century Islamic theorists championed were updated versions of medieval commercial instruments, still known in the Islamic financial sector by their Arabic names: in addition to bonds, known as sukuk, there are profit-and-loss sharing instruments known as musharaka or mudaraba, Islamic leases known as ijara, and a commercial trade instrument called murabaha, the flexibility of which has made it extremely popular among Islamic financial firms.

Banking, as an institution, evolved at the same time as the unprecedented economic growth in Europe over the past 500 years. That growth was made possible in part by the codification, in the 12th century, of a distinction between usury and interest in the Christian tradition.

The Islamic world witnessed the development of corporate contract law and the European banking system from afar. A mixture of traditional arrangements and, later, imported Western practices prevailed in Muslim countries. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that anyone tried to combine the two, governing a modern bank according to Islamic law.

You don't have to be Islamic to bank in accordance with sharia. All you need is a board of religious scholars to approve your operation.Islamic financial institutions, the argument went, would boost the economic development of Muslim societies. The fraternal style of Islamic banking—with its emphasis on equity financing rather than lending—would enhance social responsibility. In practice, however, Islamic finance has had to bend to the same pressures as any other kind of finance.

Social, religiously oriented investment in the development of the Islamic world is something people are more interested in publicly championing than personally doing. Khalid Ikram, who represented the World Bank in Egypt, says of Islamic banking, “it hasn’t had a lot to do with development.”

Pinning down the growth of Islamic banking is a challenge. Whether a banking system truly counts as halal—that is, compliant with the laws of sharia, or, in another religious context, kosher—is a religious question, hard for accountants to answer. Take Iran: should the country’s whole banking system, which is nominally Islamic, be counted as part of the sector even though many experts raise questions about its legitimacy?

The numbers I found were anecdotal. Rodney Wilson, professor of economics at Durham University in Britain and editor of the essay collection The Politics of Islamic Finance, estimates total assets within halal banking systems at just under $500 billion. That’s roughly the size of Wells Fargo Bank, America’s fourth-largest. Hussein A. Hassan of Deutsche Bank predicts that Islamic finance will be the world’s fastest-growing banking sector for years, based on what he calls a modest estimate of 20 percent annual increases in deposits.

So it’s big business, getting bigger, and those who hesitate to enter it now risk suffering an expertise deficit later. The number of professionals trained to structure sharia-compliant products, and of religious scholars qualified to certify them, is small enough to be already causing problems. Governments are getting in the game, too: Japan is planning to become the first non-Muslim country to issue sharia-compliant bonds; the UK, Gordon Brown announced last summer, is revising its laws to make London the “gateway” for Islamic finance in Europe; and Malaysia has proposed substantial tax incentives in its 2007 budget for its Islamic financial sector.

Deutsche Bank, Chase, and HSBC, the giant London-based financial institution with an extensive presence in Asia, have all entered the sector within the last ten years. Their moves coincide with rising oil prices, echoing a phenomenon three decades ago. When the 1970s oil boom gave Muslims and their governments wealth that seemed barely countable, Islamic financial institutions bloomed: the Islamic Development Bank (1975), the Kuwait Finance house (1977), the Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt (1977), the Jordan Islamic Bank (1978), and others. In 1979, Bank Misr, a conventional financial house in Egypt, became the first mainstream bank to build a halal subsidiary, which in the late 1990s began to attract more capital than its chief domestic competitor, the Faisal Islamic Bank.

Oil prices and religious fervor are both on the rise again. This time, Western financial firms have noticed that you don’t have to be Islamic to bank in accordance with sharia. All you need is a board of religious scholars to approve your operation. Muslim is as Muslim does.

The Islamic world witnessed the development of corporate contract law and the European banking system from afar.Hussein Hassan of Deutsche Bank is an example of the sort of expert required. He structures specialized Islamic bonds, or sukuk. For a bond to qualify as sharia-compliant, there must be an underlying asset backing it. One cannot simply issue bonds to raise money, the way it’s been done elsewhere for centuries, in return for a promise of a fixed rate of return. To be Islamic in nature, the securities that look like bonds must represent fractions of an equity asset, rather than fractions of a loan.

According to sharia scholars signing off on the prospectuses, the practices of the multinationals are fully Islamic. That is good news for corporations that want to raise money from Muslims, and for the observant clients themselves. But the potential clientele is by no means captive. As Hassan put it to me, “money always looks for the best deal.” if Islamic finance couldn’t provide results close to those of secular institutions, it wouldn’t exist.

Khalid Ikram, who headed the World Bank’s operations in Egypt in the late 1990s, looked into the performance of Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt (FIBE) back during the early boom days. It turned out that, despite the bank’s citing “religious fervor” to him as the reason for its growth, Coptic Christians made up about 10 percent of the bank’s clients, just as they do of the country’s population. When returns dropped, so did investment and market share. Egyptians with foreign capital generally preferred to keep their cash overseas, even though the returns there were less than the roughly 20 percent returns FIBE was promising on current accounts. The greater security of foreign deposits made up for their lower rate of return. The rational profit motive never lost its place as the key factor in investor behavior.

Timur Kuran, professor of economics and law at the University of Southern California and author of Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism, points out that investing in sharia-compliant fashion doesn’t just buy you decent returns—it can also buy political legitimacy. “Islamic finance didn’t come into its own until the 1970s. Why during the oil boom? Huge amount of assets, petrodollars, were accumulating in the sheikdoms and with the Saudis. These regimes were considered quite illegitimate, and there were a lot of opposition movements, so they wanted to legitimize their regimes and invest the money at the same time…. They could claim that they were promoting Islam and avoiding interest.”

Since the inception of Islamic economics as a distinct discipline in the 20th century, it has always been held up as a champion of ethical development. Islamist writers such as Sayyid Qutb and Sayyid Abul-A’la Maududi envisioned Islamic finance as the economic arm of a new, sharia-guided political order. Free of the scourge of interest, the instrument by which fat-cat colonial and imperial capitalists make money from money, Islamic financial institutions would effectively become private equity or venture capital firms, providing sorely needed investment and support for the region’s economy. By investing in Islamic finance, you weren’t just being pious—you were aiding development and helping the poor as well.

But the post-capitalist utopia that reliance on these instruments was meant to inaugurate was dead on arrival. Those involved in the first wave of Islamic banks realized that equity financing does not make for a stable banking sector, and, after a series of shocks and bad investments, they became very conservative. It was a race to the loopholes—a search for means of sharia compliance less risky than straight-out equity investing.

It's big business, getting bigger, and those who hesitate to enter it now risk suffering an expertise deficit later.The chief loophole was murabaha. Let’s say that you, a small businessman, wish to go into business selling cars. A conventional bank would examine your credit history and, if all was acceptable, grant you a cash loan. You would incur an obligation to return the funds on a specific maturity date, paying interest each month along the way. When you signed the note and made the promise, you would use the proceeds to buy the cars—and meet your other expenses—yourself.

But in a murabaha transaction, instead of just cutting you the check, the bank itself would buy the cars. You promise to buy them from the bank at a higher price on a future date—like a futures contract in the commodities market. The markup is justified by the fact that, for a period, the bank owns the property, thus assuming liability. At no point in the transaction is money treated as a commodity, as it is in a normal loan.

But here’s the catch: most Muslim scholars agree that there is no minimum time interval for the bank to own the property before selling it to you at the markup. According to Timur Kuran, the typical interval is “under a millisecond.” The bank transfers ownership of the asset to its client right away. The client still pays a fixed markup at a later date, a payment that is usually secured by some sort of collateral or by other forms of contractual coercion. Thus, in practice, murabaha is a normal loan.

Since murabaha must be asset-based, however, it can’t help a small businessman who needs a working-capital loan, for example, to provide cash on hand to meet payroll or other expenses. To get such capital from an Islamic financial institution, an entrepreneur would have to sell the bank an equity interest in his business. This is far riskier for the bank and thus much harder to obtain.

The experts tell me that every Islamic bank has at least three-quarters of its investments structured as murabaha. Even the inaptly named Islamic Development Bank was, as of the mid-1980s, doing four-fifths of its business through murabaha, and only 1 percent through equity transactions.

What the “Islamic” label might mean is left to the beholder. The sharia scholars make it their business to pronounce only upon the letter of the law. Like legal practitioners everywhere, they focus on the technicalities. The spirit, being intangible, tends not to cloud their rulings. The leading critics of this inconsistency are political Islamists themselves. Majed Jarrar, a personable young man who studies electrical engineering, wears a long beard, and is keen to discuss his faith, recently opened an account with FIBE here in Cairo, only to let it sit empty. He’s been investigating whether “it’s actually Islamic or not,” and he doesn’t like what he’s finding.

When I asked him about the sort of innovation that, for example, Hussein Hassan at Deutsche Bank is involved in, Majed scoffed. Recalling a similar campaign by a Gulf-based Islamic financial house (“creative Islamic Solutions” was the slogan), Majed argued that sharia law is less about innovation than it is about a return to the ways of seventh-century Arabia.

Despite the zeal of purists like Jarrar, an entire banking sector without debt would be far too unstable. Such a system has never had to exist—medieval Islam had extensive regulations governing trade relations and individual contract law, but there was no banking, so there were no banking rules.

While no one I interviewed argued that sharia-compliant financing directly retards economic and social development, there was agreement that it does much less than the original rhetoric claimed. Not only are working-capital loans, critical to many small businesses, rare, but also sharia-compliant transactions tend to be short-term.

Still, there’s something reassuring about the way that the rational profit motive trumps strict ideology. The willingness to put profit first is, it turns out, the real shared value that links Islamic and Western civilizations.

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Aaron MacLean lives in Cairo. From 2003 to 2006 he was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where he researched medieval Arabic thought.

Canada's Banks working with Islamists to cash into Muslim fears

2008-01-27T09:33:00.000-05:00

January 25, 2008

Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance

TAREK FATAH
The Globe and Mail

It seems only yesterday that Premier Dalton McGuinty declared: "There will be no sharia law in Ontario." Many of us, who witnessed the medieval nature of manmade sharia laws in our countries of birth, heaved a sigh of relief back in September of 2005. We thought this was the end of the attempt by Islamists to sneak sharia into a Western jurisdiction. We were wrong.

The campaign to introduce sharia is back. Last time, the campaign took a populist approach, invoking multiculturalism. This time, the pro-sharia lobby is dangling the carrot of new niche markets and has the backing of Canada's major banks. Such icons of the corporate world as Citibank NA, HSBC Holdings PLC, and Barclays PLC have endorsed sharia banking and have started offering Islamic financing products to a vulnerable Muslim population.

In May, 2007, The Globe reported that "Several Canadian financial institutions are preparing sharia-compliant mortgages, insurance, taxi licensing and investment funds to help serve the country's fastest-growing part of the population." Recently, the Toronto Star's business section reported that an unnamed bank may offer sharia loans as early as this summer; Le Journal de Montreal disclosed that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation(CMHC) was also getting in on the act. Stephanie Rubec, spokesperson for the CMHC, said the Crown corporation had launched a tender worth $100,000 to study Islamic mortgages for Muslim Canadians. Could she be oblivious to the fact that almost all Muslim Canadians currently have home mortgages through banks and don't feel they are living in sin? In fact, CMHC has gone a step further: It has quietly entered into a partnership with a Saudi company, AaYaan Holdings, to develop sharia-compliant mortgage-lending systems.

The origin of Islamic banking has its roots in the 1920s, but did not start until the late 1970s and owes much of its foundation to the Islamist doctrine of two people — Abul Ala Maudoodi of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and Hassan al-Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The theory was put into practice by Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul-Haq who established sharia banking law in Pakistan.

Proponents of sharia banking rest their case on many verses of the Holy Koran that outlaw usury, not interest.

Verses that address the question of loans and debts include:

* Al Baqarah (2:275): God hath permitted trade and forbidden usury;
* Al Baqarah (2:276): Allah does not bless usury, and He causes charitable deeds to prosper, and Allah does not love any ungrateful sinner.

Every English-language translation of the Koran has translated the Arabic word riba as usury, not interest. Yet, Islamists have deliberately portrayed bank interest as usury and labelled the current banking system as un-Islamic. Instead, these Islamists have created exotic products with names that are foreign to much of the world's Muslim population. This is where they mask interest under the niqab of Mudraba, Musharaka, Murabaha, and Ijara.

Two authors, both senior Muslim bankers, have written scathing critiques of sharia banking, one labelling the practice as nothing more than "deception," with the other suggesting the entire exercise was "a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials." Why Canadian banks would contribute to this masquerade is a question for ordinary Canadians to ask.

Muhammad Saleem is a former president and CEO of Park Avenue Bank in New York. Prior to that, he was a senior banker with Bankers Trust where, among other responsibilities, he headed the Middle East division and served as adviser to a prominent Islamic bank based in Bahrain. In his book, Islamic Banking — A $300 Billion Deception, Mr. Saleem not only dismisses the founding premise of sharia and Islamic banking, he says, "Islamic banks do not practise what they preach: they all charge interest, but disguised in Islamic garb. Thus they engage in deceptive and dishonest banking practises."

Another expert, Timur Kuran, who taught Islamic Thought at the University of Southern California, mocks the very idea. In his book, Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism, Prof. Kuran writes that the effort to introduce sharia banking "has promoted the spread of anti-modern currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy."

Dozens of Islamic scholars and imams now serve on sharia boards of the banking industry. Moreover, a new industry of Islamic banking conferences and forums has emerged, permitting hundreds of sharia scholars to mix and mingle with bankers and economists at financial centres around the globe. In the words of Mr. Saleem, who attended many such meetings, they gather "to hear each other praise each other for all the innovations they are making." He gives examples of how sharia scholars only care for the money they get from banks, willing to rubberstamp any deal where interest is masked.

No sooner had CMHC announced its plans to study sharia-compliant mortgages, than an imam from Montreal's Noor Al Islam mosque offered his services to Canada's banks, claiming Muslims are averse to conventional mortgages because "it goes against their beliefs," a claim that would not withstand the slightest scrutiny.

Other academics who have studied the phenomenon have reached similar conclusions. Two New Zealand business professors, Beng Soon Chong and Ming-Hua Liu of Auckland University, in an October, 2007, study on the growth of Islamic banking in Malaysia, wrote: "Only a negligible portion of Islamic bank financing is strictly 'profit-and-loss sharing' based. … Our study, however, provides new evidence, which shows that, in practice, Islamic deposits are not interest-free." They concluded that the rapid growth in Islamic banking was "largely driven by the Islamic resurgence worldwide."

In the name of Islam, deception and dishonesty is being practised while ordinary Muslims are being made to feel that their interaction with mainstream banks is un-Islamic and sinful. As Mr. Saleem asks, "If Islamic banks label their hamburger a Mecca Burger, as long as it still has the same ingredients as a McDonald's burger, is it really any different in substance?"
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Tarek Fatah is the author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, to be published in March.

Sharia Banking:"There's big business in fooling God"

2008-01-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

October 15, 2007

God and financial loopholes -- what of it?
For some religions, there's big business in fooling God

ANDREW POTTER
Macleans Magazine
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071015_110166_110166&source=srch

Wally: Do you mean you knew what was happening to us all the time?Supreme Being: Well, of course. I am the Supreme Being, I'm not entirely dim ...
-- Terry Gilliam's 1981 film Time Bandits

When I was in graduate school, I spent some time as a teaching assistant for the department's big Introduction to Philosophy course, which served first-year students a tasting menu of questions in logic, metaphysics, and ethics. The most fun to teach were the various proofs for the existence of God. One year, a student submitted a paper where, on the title page, "God" was written as "G-d." When the professor asked for an explanation, the student said he was Jewish, and Jews were not permitted to write out the full name of God. The professor pursed his lips for a moment, looked at the student, and said: "You know, you're not fooling God."

For those of us most familiar with the Christian approach to religion, writing "G-d" to get around a prohibition against writing God's name amounts to little more than impious cheating. Ours is an omniscient God, after all: he knows what is in our hearts and in our minds, and he can't be fooled by legalistic hairsplitting.

Turns out that for some religions, fooling God is not only considered fair play, it is also big business. Consider the controversial bit of religious sea-lawyering known as "Islamic finance" or "Islamic economics": a basket of financial instruments designed to get around the Quranic rule that forbids Muslims from charging or paying interest. Given that interest is the cornerstone of our financial markets, it is pretty much impossible to turn your nose up at interest and participate in the modern economy.

That is why the past few years have seen tremendous growth in sharia-compliant financial instruments, such as interest-free mortgages and savings accounts where the bank rewards the depositor with occasional "gifts of appreciation" for the use of his money.Let's be honest. Islamic finance isn't fooling anyone, least of all God.

Everyone involved understands that the various gifts and deferred payments are just bearded forms of interest, but the proper question is not whether God is fooled, but whether anyone should care.Someone who cares a great deal is the Scourge of Islam, Daniel Pipes, better known as the director of the pro-Israel think tank the Middle East Forum. In a recent article in the National Post about the rise of Islamic finance, Pipes warns that there is nothing "Islamic" about the barely disguised interest payments, and that behind its economic triviality lurks a great political danger.

Drawing on the book Islam and Mammon, by the Muslim scholar Timur Kuran, Pipes argues that Islamic finance was created for political motives, designed to strengthen the Muslim identity by minimizing their interactions with non-Muslims.He concludes that by enabling the economic activities of Muslims and allowing them to "modernize without Westernizing," Islamic economics serves as a source of global instability.

Pipes suggests that it would be much better if Muslims were really forbidden from paying interest or any of its facsimiles, because they would then be relegated "to the fringes of the international economy."This is insane, not to mention a bit obtuse. For starters, not every religion places so much value on correct belief or thought. Observing the faith is in some cases more about following a strict set of rules or codes, cleaving as close as possible to their letter and worrying less about their spirit. Among the big three monotheisms arising from the Mideast, Judaism and Islam are more concerned with rules than Christianity is.

That is why, to Christian eyes, Jews and Muslims seem to expend a great deal of effort trying to fool God.One example is the Orthodox Jewish practice of installing eruvin around neighbourhoods -- symbolic fences made of rope or string slung from lampposts and street signs. It is a way of getting around the rule against carrying things from one domain to another on the Sabbath.

The presence of the eruv around a neighbourhood allows residents to treat the whole area as a single dwelling, which lets them carry stuff outside on the Sabbath without breaking Torah law. Is God fooled? To ask the question is to miss the point.If anything, we should be celebrating the rise of Islamic economics, since if its goal was to keep Muslims isolated from the corrupting influences of the West it has been a huge failure. As a major survey in the Financial Times last spring pointed out, Islamic finance is now a trillion-dollar business, and most large Western banks -- including HSBC, Barclays, and Citibank -- are racing to re-craft all of their products along Islamic lines.

To see this as a source of instability and political danger is sheer paranoia. Far from ghettoizing Muslims, sharia-compliant finance is drawing them deeper into the network of global institutions, helping them to integrate into the modern world without having to assimilate to Western values. Sure, Islamic finance appears to many -- me included -- as little more than an exercise in trying to fool God. But if helping Muslims fool their God is part of the price we have to pay for global economic and political stability, it's the bargain of the century.

Islamic Banking: Posing a substanial poltical danger

2008-01-21T23:16:00.000-05:00

September 27, 2007, 6:30

The folly of 'Islamic economics'

The National Post

Though few in the West have noticed the phenomenon, a significant and rapidly growing amount of money is now being managed in accord with Islamic law, the Shariah. According to one study, "by the end of 2005, more than 300 institutions in over 65 jurisdictions were managing assets worth around US$700-billion to US$1-trillion in a Shariah compatible manner."

Islamic economics increasingly has become a force to contend with burgeoning portfolios of oil exporters and multiplying Islamic financial instruments (such as interest-free mortgages and profit-sharing sukuk bonds). But what does it all amount to? Can Shariah-compliant instruments challenge the existing international financial order? Would an Islamic economic regime, as one enthusiast claims, really help end injustice by ensuring "the state's provision for the well-being of all people"?

To understand this system, the ideal place to start is Islam and Mammon, a brilliant book by Timur Kuran, written when he held the Saudi-sponsored position of King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California.

Now teaching at Duke University, Kuran finds that Islamic economics does not go back to the time of Muhammad, but is in fact an "invented tradition" that emerged in the 1940s in India. The notion of an economics discipline "that is distinctly and selfconsciously Islamic is very new." Even the most learned Muslims a century ago would have been dumbfounded by the "Islamic economics."

The idea was primarily the brainchild of a South Asian Islamist intellectual, Abul-Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), for whom Islamic economics served as a mechanism to achieve many goals: to minimize relations with non-Muslims, strengthen the collective sense of Muslim identity, extend Islam into a new area of human activity, and modernize without Westernizing.

As an academic discipline, Islamic economics took off during the mid-1960s; it acquired institutional heft during the oil boom of the 1970s, when the Saudis and other Muslim oil exporters, for the first time possessing substantial sums of money, signed on to the project.
Proponents of Islamic economics assert that the prevailing capitalist order has failed and that Islam offers the remedy. To assess the latter assertion, Kuran scrutinizes the actual functioning of Islamic economics, focusing on its three main claims: that it has abolished interest on money, achieved economic equality, and established a superior business ethic. On all three counts, he finds it a total failure.

"Nowhere has interest been purged from economic transactions, and nowhere does economic Islamization enjoy mass support," he writes. Exotic and complex profit-loss sharing techniques such as ijara, mudaraba, murabaha and musharaka all involve thinly disguised payments of interest. Banks claiming to be Islamic in fact "look more like other modern financial institutions than like anything in Islam's heritage."

In brief, there is almost nothing Islamic about Islamic banking-- which goes far to explain how Citibank and other major Western financial institutions host far larger ostensibly Islam-compliant deposits than do specifically Islamic banks.

"Nowhere," Kuran writes, has the goal of reducing inequality by imposition of the zakat tax (a form of tithing) succeeded. Indeed, the author finds this tax "does not necessarily transfer resources to the poor; it may transfer resources away from them." Worse, in Malaysia, zakat taxation, supposedly intended to help the poor, instead appears to serve as "a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials."

In the final analysis, Kuran dismisses the whole concept of Islamic economics. "There is no distinctly Islamic way to build a ship, or defend a territory, or cure an epidemic, or forecast the weather," so why money? He concludes that the significance of Islamic economics lies not in the economy but in identity and religion. The scheme "has promoted the spread of anti-modern ? currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy."

Indeed, the conceit behind Islamic economics possibly contributes to global economic instability by "hindering institutional social reforms necessary for healthy economic development." In particular, were Muslims truly forbidden not to pay or charge interest, they would be relegated "to the fringes of the international economy."

In short, Islamic economics has trivial economic import, but poses a substantial political danger.

Rosie DiManno in Toronto Star: It's absurd and repugnant to label critcs of sharia as Islamophobic

2005-09-17T08:40:00.000-04:00

Sep. 16, 2005. 06:39 AM

Sharia solution a fair one, and not racist

By ROSIE DIMANNO
The Toronto Star
http://tinyurl.com/bqtw4

The time has come for Canadians to be weaned off the teat of multiculturalism as a primary source of sustenance and self-identity.

Surely, in the 21st century, we are more than the sum total of our diverse parts and hyphenated definitions.

What once bound us together in a less self-assured era — the appealing dynamics of ethnic and cultural distinctions undiluted by melting pot nationalism — served its purpose well for several decades, since first advocated as a cementing ideology by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

But somewhere along the line, perhaps when human rights tribunals and clumsily codified diversity legislation began to illogically skew the social balance, asserting minority rights over majority concepts, the whole thing began to unravel.

There is something wrong when Premier Dalton McGuinty is portrayed, at least by implication, as racist for asserting that secular courts cannot be used to uphold decisions on family law made through faith-based arbitration.

There is something amiss when religious leaders take constitutional umbrage over the paramount authority of Canadian jurisprudence on matters in which they presume to have moral authority.

There is something absurd if not outright repugnant about labelling as "Islamaphobic'' — a currently trendy neologism with no precise definition but tons of attitude — women who have spent their lives promoting gender equality, yet now find themselves castigated, in the most paternalistic language, for daring to champion the secular over the infantilizing religious.

In this hypersensitive era, when few dare speak obvious truths lest they be hounded by the righteous and the grievance-subsumed, McGuinty made the only choice possible to halt the legal enshrinement of sharia law in family arbitration matters — retroactively gutting the Arbitration Act that has, for the past 13 years, permitted faith-based mediation in Ontario by other religious denominations.

It was the NDP — twisting itself into an ideological pretzel and sacrificing basic Canadian values on the altar of religious institutional rights — that gave us that little piece of legislation.

It's difficult to say, probably because none of us investigated the practice properly in all this time, whether women, in particular, were getting a fair shake out of their rabbis and priests in matters related to divorce, custody, child support, property settlement and inheritance. Presumably, only those who take their faith ultra seriously, the orthodox, would seek arbitration from these Catholic tribunals and rabbinical courts in the first place. And if they respect those agencies, they would abide by their decisions.

In practice, from what I've been able to determine, the numbers of such formally arbitrated cases are quite small. The Catholic Archdiocese in Toronto, for example, limits quasi-judicial authority, as it existed under the Arbitration Act, to annulment requests. But an annulment doesn't replace civil divorce, which is still required to dismantle a marriage. I know of no instances where the Church has settled, say, custodial matters.

In that context, it is perhaps unfair for Catholic tribunals and rabbinical courts to have the rug pulled out from under them in order for the government to put an ecumenical face on what was clearly aimed at circumscribing Islamic authority.

McGuinty's solution is fair if disingenuous. He can't be accused of a cultural bias against Muslims. And there is no vilifying bias against Muslims in Canada because such a thing won't be tolerated, not in our institutions and not in our communities. But there was a legitimate fear that fundamentalist practices as codified in sharia law — even more worrisomely, as interpreted by individual imams — would leave women vulnerable to judgments founded on religious texts that clash with Canadian law and values.

There is nothing to prevent Muslim women, or people of any faith, to continue seeking mediation from religious authorities. Surely, it is well within the purview of such authorities to give counsel and advice to the faithful. The spiritual and the moral remain realms of temporal consultation. But this province couldn't put its faith in the fallback protections afforded by civil courts, which would still have maintained the right to overrule decisions rendered under sharia law, had the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice been successful in seeking state sanction for Islamic tribunals.

The most vulnerable individuals — women accustomed to patriarchal dictates and their children — would likely find it extremely difficult to assert their civil rights, particularly if they are new to this country, unfamiliar with our legal system, and living within an ethnic cocoon, as is the case for many recent immigrants. This might seem, as proponents of sharia law (including some Muslim women) claim, an intrinsically paternalistic view, as if Muslim women are incapable of grasping their own circumstances and require the apparatus of the state to defend them. But the reality is that, for so many women, especially immigrant women who lead insular lives, they do not share, are often not permitted to share, in the values and rights so vital to our society.

I saw this a generation ago in the constituency I know best — Catholic women in Italian families, allowed precious little choice by the domineering, if however well-intentioned, men in their lives.

Islam may be the answer for more than a billion people on this Earth and I in no way wish to diminish the richness of a majestic faith that expresses itself in every facet of a person's daily life. It is, or thus it seems to me, a religion of surrendering to intensely codified conduct. Perhaps this is what makes it so attractive and why it is the world's fastest growing faith. It's not my place to judge.

But there are applications of that faith, as determined by sharia law, that have no formalized place in Canadian society.

That much we do have the collective right to judge, without being called racist.

Margaret Atwood's Open Letter to Premier McGuinty: "Don't ghettoize women's rights"

2005-09-10T12:40:00.000-04:00

September 10, 2005

OPEN LETTER TO ONTARIO PREMIER DALTON MCGUINTY
Don't ghettoize women's rights

The Globe and Mail
http://tinyurl.com/aqdnu

Dear Mr. McGuinty:

An important tenet of Canadian democracy hangs in the balance of your response to the matter of religious arbitration in the province of Ontario. While many Canadians may assume that we are all governed by one system of laws, created by publicly elected officials who are accountable to the electorate, your government is poised to shift the ground under this cornerstone of liberal democracy.

While our public system of law is not always perfect, it is designed to recognize the realities of all citizens and is open to public scrutiny and improvement. Such is not the case with private systems of law, such as religious laws.

The public may identify this issue from media reports as "Sharia law in Ontario," but they, and you, need to understand that this is a matter of the formal separation of all religious matters from the business of the state. This is in no way an infringement on religious freedom, which we endorse as an equally important tenet of Canadian democracy. Religion should simply remain an important part of the lives of citizens but not of public law.

Surely the separation of church and state is understood by today's politicians to be the fertile ground upon which modern, rights-based democracies such as that in Canada have flourished. Arbitrariness, petty theocracies and selective -- rather than universal -- access to public law await us if we simply treat this issue as a detail in the daily business of government.

Ontario's commitment to religious freedom, anti-racism and multiculturalism are very important to us and to all Ontarians. Some have argued that to deny arbitration based on religious laws is a breach of these commitments.

We do not agree.

Allowing the use of religious arbitration will lead to divisiveness, the ghettoization of members of religious communities as well as human-rights abuses, particularly for those who hold the least institutional power within the community, namely women and children.

We urge you to speak strongly in favour of Ontario's commitment to one system of laws for all, as well as for freedom of religion and anti-racism. Prohibit the use of religion in the arbitration of family law disputes through appropriate amendments to the Arbitration Act. The eyes of the world are quite literally watching Ontario at this time to see if we have the courage to move forward on this issue in a way that preserves our common bond and is inclusive and respectful of all.

Sincerely,

Margaret Atwood
Maude Barlow
June Callwood
Shirley Douglas
Michele Landsberg
Flora MacDonald
Margaret Norrie McCain
Maureen McTeer
Sonja Smits
Lois Wilson

"Keep sharia law out of Canadian judicial system" Tarek Fatah in the Kitchener Record

2005-09-10T10:01:00.000-04:00

Aug 12, 2005

Keep sharia law out of Canadian judicial system

By TAREK FATAH
The Kitchener-Waterloo Record
http://www.therecord.com

On behalf of Canada's liberal and progressive Muslims, I appreciate Premier Dalton McGuinty delaying a decision on the use of "sharia" in Ontario's Arbitration Act. However, I urge him now to take the next logical step -- put an end to all religious arbitration.

The proposed use of religious laws to settle family disputes has deeply divided the Muslim community and caused serious concern among women's groups, children's advocates and supporters of the separation of religion and state.

We are opposed to all religious tribunals that trespass the public domain. Whether they are Rabbinical, Christian or Islamic courts, we believe they cannot, and should not, be allowed to act as substitutes for our judicial system -- a system that is based on laws created by parliamentarians who are accountable to the electorate.

I urge McGuinty to reflect on the consequences of increasing the power of religious clerics, especially in view of recent events where religion has been used to inflict terror instead of building peace and harmony.

I say this not to downplay the important role of religion in our lives, but to the dangers of bringing it into public policy and thus risking further divisiveness in our society which is already threatened with religious conflict.

In her report filed last year, former NDP attorney general Marion Boyd has recommended that "Muslim principles" be permitted in arbitration as a substitute to the Family Law Act.

As Muslims, we believe that what Boyd is recommending under the cover of "Muslim principles" is, in fact, "sharia by stealth" -- man- made laws that have been erroneously given divine authority and that cannot be debated or amended by any Canadian jurisdiction.

As a Muslim, I am not alone in my opposition to introduction of sharia into the Canadian judicial system. Many Muslim academics, religious scholars and human rights activists have voiced their concern. Organizations like the Muslim Canadian Congress, the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and the United Muslim Association have been vigorous in their opposition to any introduction of sharia into the Canadian justice system.

Prof. Omid Safi, who teaches Islamic studies at Colgate University in New York State, says, "The use of religious law as a substitute for laws created by Parliament, and the establishment of a multi-tier legal system -- one for average Canadians and one for Muslim Canadians -- is not only unjust, but also detrimental to the well-being of all Canadian citizens."

One of Islam's leading scholars in Europe, Prof. Tariq Ramadan of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, told a magazine there was no need for Canadian Muslims to set up their own sharia courts, saying they are "not necessary." He said demanding such courts "is another example of lack of creativity" among Muslims.

And in May of this year, none other than Nobel Peace Prize winner Shrin Ebadi took a firm stand against the introduction of Islamic tribunals in Canada, warning they open the door to potential human rights abuses.

Furthermore, I believe that introducing sharia into the judicial system will ghettoize the Muslim community, making their already difficult task of integrating into Canadian society even more onerous.

I believe that mosques, churches, temples and synagogues have an important role to play in the community, but their role should be restricted to mediation and reconciliation, not interfering with the Canadian justice system and running a parallel private-sector judiciary with self-styled religious judges for hire.

Just as McGuinty stood up for public education, despite immense pressure from the religious lobby, I hope he will take the courageous decision to ensure that one law exists for all Ontarians, irrespective of religion, race or gender. Only then can we hope for a civic society where diversity is not allowed to create divisiveness.

If the Ontario government implements the Boyd report, I believe the move will further ghettoize the already marginalized Muslim community and will play into the hands of the racists who want nothing better than to exclude Muslims from the mainstream.

The decision McGuinty makes will have a profound long-term impact not only on our society, but also across the Muslim world, where progressive and liberal men and women are fighting to keep sharia out of the political system.

In the words of Safi, "We are alarmed at the prospects of repressive Muslim governments around the world pointing to Canada, and the implementation of sharia within Canada, as a justification for their oppressive legal systems. This is not a comment on Islamic jurisprudence as a whole, but rather on the repressive interpretations of sharia found in those countries. It is
unrealistic to think that the ayatollahs of Iran or the proponents of Wahabism in Saudi Arabia will not use this to promote the viability of their oppressive visions."

My position is not against religion. On the contrary, I stand for the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. However, freedom of religion does not mean that we dilute laws and strengthen the power of imams, rabbis and priests over their communities -- especially the most vulnerable.
—-----------------------------
Tarek Fatah is host of the weekly CTS-TV show, The Muslim Chronicle and a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a grassroots progressive Muslim organization.

Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente: "Whistling sharia while we go completely off our rocker"

2005-09-10T09:45:00.000-04:00

September 8, 2005

Whistling sharia while we go completely off our rocker

By Margaret Wente
Globe and Mail
http://tinyurl.com

What do Ontario and Iraq have in common?

Here's one thing: In both Baghdad and Toronto, women are taking to the streets to protest against the introduction of Islamic law. They know that Islamic law is no friend of women's rights, and they are fighting to make sure it has no role in the law of the state.

Progressive liberals around the world are raising the alarm over what's happening in Iraq. In Ontario, on the other hand, the progressive liberals in our government think Islamic law is a mighty fine idea. In the interest of cultural sensitivity, they want to give Muslim women the privilege of resolving family disputes through sharia arbitration tribunals conducted by imams. If all goes as planned, Ontario will be the first Western jurisdiction to permit the settlement of family disputes using sharia.

In other parts of the world, the general reaction is that we've gone completely off our rocker. "What is wrong with Canadian civil law that religious Canadians must look elsewhere?" asked Mona Eltahawy, a Muslim writing in The Christian Science Monitor.

Good question. Premier Dalton McGuinty has yet to answer it. He's been cornered by a pro-sharia report his government commissioned from former NDP politician Marion Boyd, who came up with a Rube Goldberg plan to monitor sharia courts so they wouldn't run afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then there's the awkward fact that Ontario already allows Jewish and Christian religious courts to settle family matters. Naturally, Muslim pressure groups are crying discrimination.

But not all of them. Some Muslims insist the last thing they want is Islamic courts in Canada. They're leading the no-sharia coalition, a broad mix of moderate Muslims, small-c conservatives, social activists, and women's and human-rights groups. "We want the same laws to apply to us as to other Canadian women," says the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. Even the grand mufti of Marseilles, Soheib Bencheikh, thinks we're nuts. When asked to comment on the plan for sharia in Ontario, he said: "It's illogical to apply today the precepts conceived [in tribal, patriarchal societies] to safeguard the interests of yesterday."

In the government's camp is a diehard group of multiculturalists who've decided that group religious rights outweigh women's individual rights. Their allies are conservative Muslims such as Syed Mumtaz Ali, who has campaigned for sharia for the past decade. He recently declared that Muslims cannot live under secular law alone. "Every act of your life is to be governed by [sharia]," he said. "If you are not obeying the law, you are not a Muslim. That's all there is to it."

The government reassures us that rulings under sharia will conform to Canadian law. But many of the people who favour sharia appear to have the opposite impression. "The sharia or divine law of Islam prevails over all man-made laws," wrote Abdul Malik Quraoshi in a letter to The Hamilton Spectator. "It is crystal clear in the Holy Book of Islam. No human institution can have the audacity and the cheek to interpret sharia." But don't worry. As he goes on: "Islam is a positive religion and emphasizes total loyalty and absolute obedience to its fundamental doctrines."

The government has consulted a pile of experts. But evidently it forgot to consult people who actually know a bit about the way that sharia is applied today, unofficially, in Canada's burgeoning Muslim communities. The Premier seems to be unaware that women are forced to relinquish custody of their children after divorce, or are sent packing back to their hometowns if they displease their husbands.

Bad things like this won't happen, we're told, once Muslim arbitration courts are supervised by the state. But why go to all the bother and expense of supervising them? Why give faith-based agreements the imprimatur of the state at all? And why set a precedent that other Muslim groups will point to as they push for Islamic law? "I think the politicians are out of their minds," says Homa Arjomand, who founded the International Campaign Against Shari'a Court in Canada.

Today, people will turn out to protest against sharia courts in 12 cities in Canada and Europe, including Toronto, Victoria, Ottawa, Montreal, London, Paris and Stockholm. And people around the world will marvel that we've gone completely off our rocker. Ontario and Iraq. What a pair.

Toronto Star: Don't succumb to imams, rabbis, and priests. Ontario needs one law for all its citizens, regardless of religion, says Tarek Fatah

2005-06-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

June 22, 2005

Don't succumb to imams, rabbis, and priests
Ontario needs one law for all its citizens, regardless of religion

By Tarek Fatah
The Toronto Star
http://tinyurl.com/7dq42

In 1991, as the full impact of a recession hit the NDP government in Ontario, it explored all avenues to cut costs. Budgets were slashed and many promises, such as public auto insurance, fell by the wayside. However, one cost-cutting initiative introduced by then attorney general Howard Hampton has become a headache for the McGuinty Liberals 14 years later.

The law in question is the 1991 Arbitration Act, which permitted faith-based binding arbitration as a substitute for Family Law courts. What began as a cost-cutting measure has today split Canada's Muslim community, made strange bedfellows of otherwise hostile faith-based groups and led to the Quebec National Assembly rejecting sharia.

The issue has also divided the Liberal caucus, which is considering a report by Marion Boyd recommending the use of sharia law in private arbitration as a substitute for Ontario family law.

But the most surprising announcement came from the author of the law — Hampton. Now the leader of the NDP, he issued a statement distancing his party from the Boyd recommendations. The statement said the NDP believes "there is sufficient evidence to conclude arbitration has no place in family law."

Compared to Hampton and his New Democrats, other politicians seem to have their eyes set on the next election and are responding to the power brokering of religious leaders.

Some commentators suggest Attorney General Michael Bryant faces a thankless choice: Stick with affordable but unreliable private justice or convince Ontarians to pay for a publicly funded, publicly accountable legal system. For many, this is a no-brainer.

Privatizing our judicial system is not a choice; it is a betrayal of one of the fundamental principles of civic society. Allowing for private sector, for-profit, faith-based arbitrations in areas of family law is a slippery slope that will open up the dismantling of many public institutions already under the threat of privatization.

If implemented, this law will also cut along class and race lines: a publicly funded, accountable legal system run by experienced judges for mainstream Canadian society, and cheap, private-sector, part-time arbitrators for the already marginalized and recently arrived Muslim community.

For groups like the Muslim Canadian Congress, there is no such thing as a monolithic "Muslim family/personal law," which is just a euphemistic, racist way of saying we will apply the equivalent of "Christian law" or "Asian law" or "African law."

Authorizing private, for-profit arbitrators to substitute for judges, to apply a law that does not exist, is an insult to Ontarians.

Furthermore, we believe that introducing sharia into the judicial system ghettoizes the Muslim community — which spans five continents covering 1.3 billion people, in an extensive array of sects, languages, cultures, and customs — into one second-class compartment in the determination of human and family-law rights.

The congress believes this insidious and discriminatory marginalization plays into the extreme ideological agenda of a certain sector of Muslim-Canadian proponents of "Muslim law" that is antithetical to the Constitution and Canadian values.

In addition, such a law also plays into the hands of the reactionary, intolerant and racist elements of Canadian society who want nothing better than to exclude Muslims from the mainstream.
The MCC's opposition is not just to sharia courts. We oppose all religious courts, whether they are rabbinical, Christian or Islamic.

So far, the debate on the Boyd report has been held at secular institutions like the St. Lawrence Centre, Central Neighbourhood House and at the Law Society. By contrast, not a single mosque, despite requests, has agreed to host such a debate. This reluctance to debate adds to our fear of leaving justice in the hands of our clergy.

The NDP and Hampton have shown rare political candour in admitting that the law they introduced is no substitute for a healthy, well-funded public justice system. Other politicians should follow their lead at Queen's Park.

Dalton McGuinty and Bryant should not succumb to pressures from imams, rabbis, and priests. They should have the courage to speak for all Ontarians and say that while they respect the desire of religious communities to use their faith-based laws to mediate and resolve problems, it is not the business of the state to validate or endorse any set of religious laws.
--------------------------
Tarek Fatah is the communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress and the host of a weekly TV show on CTS-TV, The Muslim Chronicle

Amnesty International opposes Religious Laws to settle Family Disputes in Canada

2005-06-21T21:07:00.000-04:00

Friends,

Amnesty International has joined Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and Islamic Scholar Tariq Ramadan in opposing the introduction of private sector, for-profit, religious arbitration as a substitute to the Family Law Court system in Ontario.

Amnesty International in a letter to the Ontario Attorney General says "the use of religious and customary laws in resolving criminal and civil disputes is an issue of concern to Amnesty International globally. We have documented alarming levels of discrimination and violence, particularly for women, in the use of these laws." The letter urges the Ontario Government to "carefully consider this global reality and to the message that will be conveyed globally," if it introduces religious laws.

In the letter AI Secretary General Alex Neve writes, "we are concerned that the use of religious laws in this manner raises a very real risk that fundamental human rights, particularly the rights of women, will be violated."

Alex Neve writes, "the use of religious laws to resolve family and inheritance disputes, effectively establishes a parallel legal system for the parties involved, which operates within, but is separate from the provincial and federal legal systems."

Here are extracts from Alex Neve's letter to the Ontario Attorney General opposing the implementation of the Marion Boyd report. Boyd has recommended the use of part-time, for-profit, self-styled arbitrators, using Sharia law as a substitute for Judges and the Family Law Courts.

Boyd's report has the support of strange bedfellows; the Zionist B'nai Brith, CAIR-Canada and the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Read and reflect

Tarek Fatah
-----------------------------
The Honourable Michael Bryant
Attorney General of Ontario
720 Bay Street, 11th Floor
Toronto, ON
M5G 2K1

June 17, 2005

Dear Attorney General Bryant,

Amnesty International is aware that you are presently considering your government's position regarding the use of religious laws, pursuant to Ontario's Arbitration Act, 1991, to resolve family and inheritance disputes. We are concerned that the use of religious laws in this manner raises a very real risk that fundamental human rights, particularly the rights of women, will be violated. We urge you to ensure that any policies you adopt, or law reform you pursue, makes the protection of basic human rights a priority. Ontario's approach to this issue must not only ensure the protection of rights of women in Ontario; it must serve as a model that other governments should be pressed to follow.

Around the world, women are frequently subjected to serious discrimination with respect to family matters such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, custody of and access to children, division of marital property, and spousal support...In our work to ensure that the protection of women's human rights, we have encountered far too many situations where exercise of cultural, traditional and religious beliefs contribute to discrimination and violence against women.

Governments are obliged to take steps to protect women from such violence and discrimination and ensure that their right to equality is fully protected in the resolution of any family law or inheritance. The fundamental right of women to equality is most comprehensively enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. This critical international human rights treaty was ratified by Canada in 1981.

Amnesty International is concerned that when the Arbitration Act is used to resolve disputes that involve the internationally recognised human rights of vulnerable or disenfranchised groups, such as the equality of women and the best interests of children, it is imperative that the arbitration process and the system of law that is applied scrupulously uphold those rights.

Amnesty International is concerned that allowing the use of religious laws to resolve family and inheritance disputes, effectively establishes a parallel legal system for the parties involved, which operates within, but is separate from the provincial and federal legal systems. Those individuals and institutions that develop or interpret religious based laws are not formally accountable in the same way as the Ontario government, which is responsible for ensuring compliance with international human rights standards.

When governments allow what is effectively the privatization of the legal processes that will be applied to resolve family and inheritance disputes they may directly or indirectly abdicate their responsibility to live up to this obligation.

At this point in time, Amnesty International is concerned that it has not been adequately demonstrated that religious laws, including Muslim, Jewish and Christian legal codes, can be applied under Ontario's Arbitration Act in a manner that will scrupulously ensure the non-discriminatory treatment of women.

As highlighted above, the use of religious and customary laws in resolving criminal and civil disputes is an issue of concern to Amnesty International globally. We have documented alarming levels of discrimination and violence, particularly for women, in the use of these laws. Canada has played a leadership role internationally in developing international human rights standards to protect the fundamental rights of women; the very rights undermined by some religious and customary law systems.

Effective measures have not yet been put at national or international levels to address this very serious human rights concern. We urge the government of Ontario to carefully consider this global reality and to the message that will be conveyed globally as it considers the question of the scope and nature of the laws that can be used under the Arbitration Act.

Sincerely,

Alex Neve
Secretary General

Shiela Copps: "Sharia Law is a Danger to Women...Religion and Law make a Molotov Cocktail"

2005-06-20T14:16:00.000-04:00

December 24, 2004

Sharia law is a
danger to women

Sheila Copps
The National Post
http://tinyurl.com/5ac33

The report released this week recommending the use of Sharia law in Islamic family disputes in Ontario should send a shiver down the spines of women across the country.The report's author, former Ontario attorney-general Marion Boyd, recommends widening the scope of current arbitration legislation allowing consenting parties to avoid court by choosing mediation or arbitration.

Specifically, she advocates broadening the provisions of the provincial Family Law Act to allow religious arbitration including -- but not limited to -- principles drawn from Sharia law.Boyd has defended her recommendation on the basis that arbitration involving Christians, Jews and Ismaeli Muslims has been successful since the process was established 13 years ago.

But that argument would be a whole lot more convincing if allowing Sharia law wasn't opposed by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and spokespersons for the Muslim Canadian Congress. Boyd contends that it's offensive to suggest Muslim women are less capable of making choices than women of other faiths, and that because members of other religions have the option of mediation or arbitration, Muslims should not be excluded.

What's needed, she suggests, is public education to ensure Muslim women understand "the consequences of choices." What hogwash. The problem is not with women failing to know about or understand their choices -- it's with economic, religious and familial pressures depriving them of those choices in the first place.

Boyd has failed to examine whether religious arbitrations meet the test of fairness. Does she really believe that a penniless mother with four or five children, no Canadian work experience and limited English or French language skills has choices?

Is she naive enough to think there are choices when one party (usually male) holds all the economic power and the other party lives in a dependent situation? When marriages dissolve, that balance of power becomes even more precarious -- which is why a civilian legal system is critical.The real question untouched in the Boyd report is why civil society would agree to religious arbitration -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or anything else -- in the first place.

Have we really done all we can to examine families' experiences since such processes were given the green light in Ontario, including how many arbitrations have resulted in decisions accepted by economic dependents with few real choices?

Or is this really about finding a quick solution to the backlog in our courts?Even aside from faith-based decisions and processes, secular society has hardly eliminated gender inequality: It starts when we're young and continues through all aspects of life, from the classroom to the boardroom and from the home to the House of Commons.

Throw in the volatile mix of religion and the law and you have a Molotov cocktail that could blow up at any time. A few months ago, I watched a powerful television documentary exploring the lives of women living in a British Columbia religious commune where their leader went through wives like hors d'oeuvres at a Christmas party. One woman fled and was working to save those left behind, but repeated attempts to engage authorities -- from the local police to the judiciary -- achieved little. All were sympathetic, but they were either unwilling or unable to save women from physical and sexual oppression in the name of religion.

A personal experience, too, offered ample evidence of the dangers of taking religious freedoms to the extreme. As a Member of Parliament, I was once involved in helping a woman whose children were spirited out of the country during a bitter divorce proceeding. Citing cultural and religious differences, her ex-husband fled with their children to his native Pakistan despite an outstanding Canadian court order requiring the children to remain in Canada.

Working with a private investigator and the Foreign Affairs Department, she tracked the children down and went to Pakistan to retrieve them. The only thing she received for her efforts was a severe beating at the hands of her husband's family.

A Canadian court decision could not protect the woman or her children. At the time, I wrote to two dozen family members who were in contact with the children, asking for their help in securing a safe return to Canada. But all of them, including the current president of a local Muslim organization, remained silent -- and that mother has never again seen her kids.

There is no sugar-coating it: Those children were kidnapped in the name of culture and religion.The B.C. commune and the ordeals of that mother are but two examples of how faith-based traditions and customs can clash with the values and principles our civil laws strive to defend.

With the scales of justice already weighted in favour of the family breadwinner, why risk a further erosion of women's rights in the name of religion?

Shirin Ebadi decries Islamic law for Canada

2005-06-14T17:34:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 Page A7

Shirin Ebadi decries Islamic law for Canada

By INGRID PERITZ
Globe and Mail
http://tinyurl.com/do3l7

MONTREAL -- Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, a leading human-rights crusader in her native Iran, took a firm stand against the introduction of Islamic tribunals in Canada yesterday, warning they open the door to potential rights abuses.

"I'm against having several courts and separate laws," said Ms. Ebadi, who was in Montreal to receive an honorary degree from Concordia University.

"One country, one legal code, one court -- for everybody."

Ms. Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, said she opposes the idea because Muslim law is vulnerable to interpretation. As one extreme example, some Muslim countries allow polygamy and others do not.

"Which interpretation would apply here?" she said in an interview, speaking through an interpreter. "Because there are many interpretations of the same Islamic teachings and laws, it's not clear what interpretation will be used. Often, a lot of the interpretations are anti-democratic and against human rights. That is my main concern."

The advent of traditional Islamic law, or sharia, to settle family disputes has set off an impassioned debate in Canada ever since a Muslim group proposed setting up an arbitration panel in Ontario. An Ontario report has recommended an Islamic arbitration system. But Quebec's National Assembly this month voted unanimously to oppose Islamic tribunals, saying they undermined democratic values. Ms. Ebadi said her comments can be interpreted as support for Quebec's position.

Ms. Ebadi, who won the Nobel Prize in 2003, has taken up the cause of women and children in Iran. and her vocal defence of human rights has led to frequent clashes with Iran's theocratic leaders. A long-time lawyer and former judge, she heads a group in Iran that offers legal support to prisoners of conscience including journalists, political dissidents and student activists.

She has also strongly protested against the decision by Iran's Guardian Council to bar women from running in this Friday's presidential election. Ms. Ebadi is boycotting the vote.

Ms. Ebadi's visit to Montreal also marked an occasion to visit her daughter, 25-year-old Negar, who studies electrical engineering at McGill University. The Nobel laureate said she prefers Canada to the United States, where a harsher climate since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks has made life more difficult for Muslims.

"I find the political system and environment much better in Canada than the United States," she said. "Multiculturalism is respected in Canada."

In her commencement address, she said that the 9/11 terrorist attacks have made it "almost impossible" for foreign students to study there. "We must separate people's mistakes and sins from their religion and national origin," she said.

In the interview, Ms. Ebadi also urged Canada to keep pressure on Iran in resolving the death of Iranian-born Canadian Zahra Kazemi, the Montreal-based photojournalist who died in custody in Iran after being arrested in 2003.

"It appears the courts are basically trying to waste time in hopes this story will fade away and the public will forget about it," said Ms. Ebadi, who represents the Kazemi family in Iran.

Muslim Canadain Congress says Legality of Religious Arbitration be Referred to Ontario Court of Appeals

2005-06-12T19:24:00.000-04:00

Shariah based Arbitration is
Racist and Unconstitutional

Submissions by Muslim Canadian Congress:
Review of Arbitration Process by Marion Boyd
http://tinyurl.com/86dy8

The Muslim Canadian Congress is a national organization that provides a voice to progressive Muslims who are not represented by existing organizations. The Muslim Canadian Congress members reject organizations and a distorted view of Islam that is either sectarian, ethnocentric, authoritarian, and influenced by a fear of modernity.

Members of the Muslim Canadian Congress are proud of their Muslim heritage and the great contribution of Islam to human civilization. As Muslim Canadians, when it comes to rights and responsibilities, we believe in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Canadian constitution as our guiding principles.

The Muslim Canadian Congress is a secular organization that works to create a safe space and environment for all Muslims who are opposed to any form of theocracy. We believe in the separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy. We feel such a separation is a necessary prerequisite to building democratic societies. Societies where religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are accepted as equal citizens enjoying full dignity and human rights enunciated in the 1948 United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Muslim Canadian Congress respectfully submits:

1. that the Arbitration Act does not cover family disputes being resolved within its parameters. Furthermore, that the Family Law Act and the other pieces of legislation covering family law jurisdiction are the sole, exclusive and comprehensive scheme for resolving all family law matters touching on relationships between spouses and their children, including estate and inheritances by spouses and children. It is therefore our position that none of these matters can be dealt with under the Arbitration Act.

2. that if indeed the government takes the position, as it seems to be doing, that the Arbitration Act can deal with these matters, then the MCC further takes the position that, to that extent, the Arbitration Act is unconstitutional and of no force and effect in that:

a. It breaches the rights contained in sections 2, 7, and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada with respect to any differential treatment not specifically set out in the Constitution Act, 1867;

b. Breaches the unwritten constitutional norms enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Succession Reference namely the rule of law, constitutionalism, federalism, and respect for minorities;

c. Breaches even the common law rights to equality of citizenship as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Winner; and

d. Is otherwise repugnant to public policy in the de facto privatization of the legislative function and duty of parliament, which in fact, has been declared as unconstitutional as being the abandonment and abdication of the legislative function of parliament, as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Re Gray and further endorsed by the Supreme Court in Hallett and Carey.

3. In light of the fact that this Act exists and the Government states that there is such statutory and constitutional jurisdiction, and in light of the fact that MCC completely rejects and disagrees, we demand, on behalf of not only Muslim-Canadians, but all other Canadians who defend the rule of law and constitutionalism and equality, that the matter be referred on a reference to the Ontario Court of Appeal pursuant to section 8 of the Courts of Justice Act to determine:

a) Whether the Arbitration Act confers jurisdiction, outside the Family Law Act and other related family law statutes, to determine disputes of property, children, inheritance and estates in the family context.
b) If the Arbitration Act does confer such jurisdiction, whether it is constitutional.

4. With all due respect, if the Government maintains that the Act does confer such
jurisdiction, then these consultations are a charade as the Parliament has already spoken and any “report” or opinion to the Attorney General is just that: an opinion.

5. In practical and realistic terms, what began as a demand to introduce “Sharia Law” has now dishonestly mutated into the same thorn by any other name, and is still offensively unacceptable for the following reasons:

a) There is no such thing as a monolithic “Muslim Family/Personal Law” which is just an euphemistically racist way of saying that we will apply the equivalent to “Christian Law” or “Asian Law” or “African Law”;

b) It ghettoizes the Muslim community, which otherwise spans five different continents covering 1.3 billion people, in an extensive array of sects, languages, cultures, and customs, all into one second-class compartment in the determination of human and family law rights, which are of public importance and domain;

c) This insidious and discriminatory ghettoization and marginalization, into “out of sight” only plays into:
i) The hands of the extremist political and ideological agenda of a certain sector of Muslim-Canadian proponents of “Muslim Law” that is antithetical to the Canadian Constitution and values; and
ii) Equally into the hands of the reactionary, intolerant and otherwise racist segments of Canadian non-Muslim society who want nothing better than to exclude Muslims from the mainstream; all of this, behind the dishonest guise of religious tolerance and accommodation.

6. These practical and real objections are not only visible and apprehended by moderate Muslim Canadian members and voices, who adhere to the same rights and responsibilities of all other Canadians regardless of religion or race, but also highlight and focus the legal and constitutional repugnancy of these proposed measures.

7. In our respectful view, any public official body or institution that does not squarely and openly address the racism of these provisions and measures, is complicit in them.

8. Any “arbitration” system ought to be neutral and equally apply to any and all citizens regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. To have a system built on the exact opposite is to defile our Constitutional framework.
It would be extremely dishonest, and derelict of its responsibility for the government of the day to engage in this “consultation” and report with the public, and not refer it to the Court for validity, and expect groups such as the MCC to bring such a challenge.

In light of the above, MCC reiterates its demand that the Provincial Government refer the matter on a reference to the Ontario Court of Appeal pursuant to section 8 of the Courts of Justice Act.

All of which is respectfully submitted this 26th day of August 2004

Rocco Galati B.A., LL.B, LL.M
Counsel for the MCC
GALATI, RODRIGUES & ASSOCIATES
Barristers and Solicitors
637 College Street, Suite 203
Toronto, Ontario

Grand Mufti of Marseilles doubts Sharia suitable for Canadian society

2005-06-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

Saturday, May 14, 2005 Page A17

Muslim law cleric doubts sharia

suitable for Canadian society

By ESTANISLAO OZIEWICZ
Globe and Mail
http://tinyurl.com/794pn

The grand mufti of Marseilles is adding his voice to those opposed to applying religious laws in family matters, a practice Ontario is proposing to extend to Muslims in the province.

Soheib Bencheikh, an Algerian Muslim cleric who is also the highest official of religious law for Marseilles, said yesterday that sharia, or traditional Islamic law, incorporates both spiritual and judicial concepts developed exclusively by men centuries ago and that are subject to interpretation.

He said they may not apply to contemporary Canadian society.

"Is it possible to apply the sharia in societies that are governed by constitutions that stand for gender equality?" asked Mr. Bencheikh, who supports France's prohibition of religious symbols in schools. "It's illogical to apply today the precepts conceived [in tribal, patriarchal societies] to safeguard the interests of yesterday."

Ontario's proposal to create an Islamic arbitration system -- similar to those that exist for Jews and Ismailis -- to settle family and inheritance disputes has been attacked by some Canadian Muslim women's groups, which argue that women would be coerced and lose rights afforded them under Canadian law.

Mr. Bencheikh was speaking by telephone from Montreal, where he was attending a conference organized by Rights & Democracy, an organization created by Parliament in 1988 to promote human rights and democracy around the world. The conference is exploring religious fundamentalism and its growing threat to human rights.

Rights & Democracy has denounced Ontario's move to faith-based arbitration of family matters. President Jean-Louis Roy recently wrote to Attorney-General Michael Bryant, saying that such arbitration has the effect of privatizing family law by creating a parallel system that allows the religious, cultural and political elites that organize the dispute-settlement procedures to decide on the applicable law.

With the support of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and the National Association of Women and the Law, Mr. Roy argues that many religions can be interpreted as incorporating a gender bias to the disadvantage of women's equality rights.

"[This] could very realistically result in discrimination against women," he said.

Ziba Mir-Hosseini, of the international coalition Women Living under Muslim Law, said there are two current trends in interpreting Islamic family law: one is authoritarian, retrograde, patriarchal and detrimental to women's rights, and the other is progressive and acknowledges women's rights.

She says that if Ontario were to approve the application of Islamic law through arbitration panels, it could be seen outside Canada as favouring the authoritarian trend.

Mr. Bencheikh said that applying sharia in provincial arbitration panels also runs the risk of putting Islam in a bad light and creating divisions among people rather than bringing them together.

Rights & Democracy says that while it recognizes the right to religious freedom includes the right to participate in religious processes to resolve family disputes, Canada must not allow this to override its obligation to eliminate violence and discrimination against women.

Canadian Unitarians urge Government to ensure "seperation of church and state"

2005-06-11T08:29:00.000-04:00

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty,
Premier of Ontario
Rm 281, Main Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A4

The Honourable Michael Bryant
Attorney General of Ontario

The Honourable Sandra Pupatello,
Minister of Community and Social Services

Dear Premier and Ministers,

It is of critical concern to Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice that Family Law be excluded from the Arbitration Act. We are opposed to the recommendation of the Marion Boyd Report because of the devastating psychological effect that faith-based arbitration could have on women in some religious communities, thereby compromising their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The psychological damage and ostracism that women in those faith communities may experience could be far more harmful than the physical abuse that the Report considered.

The cultural norm of many religions is hierarchical. We believe that women members of such religions who oppose the opinions of the male heirarchy may be banished from their cultural group, and left without a support network. The human rights of these women will be in jeopardy unless Family Law is excluded from the Arbitration Act. We believe that no religious law should be a part of our justice system.

In considering the Boyd Report, balanced representation between those who support faith-based arbitration and those who are opposed to it is difficult to achieve because those who would be victimized by the arbitration will fear being victimized if they oppose its adoption by the Government of Ontario.

We urge you to find other ways of coping with the case load and the financial burdens of our judicial system. Compromising the human rights of some individuals is not an acceptable method of solving these problems. According to Professor J-F. Gaudreault-DesBiens of te University of Toronto Faculty of Law, “Those who support private abitration as an efficient and relatively cheap mechanism for esolving disputes should consider that abuses of fundamental rights committed in arbitration contexts are likely to undermine the legitimacy of arbitration itself as an alternative dispute mechanism.”1

We are concerned that faith-based laws do not always agree with the laws of Canada and of Ontario. For equality before the law--a primary right of Canadians--it is essential that all decisions be based on the same body of laws. We exhort you to ensure the separation of church and state in our legal system.

We urge you to oppose the section of the Boyd Report that would allow family law to be included in the Arbitration Act. Quebec did this. Let Ontario do so as well! Then may it be said that Ontario recognizes that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies equally to all people!

Yours truly

Philip Symons
President

Footnote: 1. Jean-Francois Gaudreault-DesBiens, “Perspectives: The Limits of Private Justice? The Problems of the State Recognition of Arbitral Awards in Family and Personal Status Disputes in Ontario”, World Arbitration & Mediation Report, January 2005, Vol. 16, No. 1, p.26.

Toronto SUN: "Catholic canon law, Judaic law -- or Sharia simply out of step for a modern society"

2005-04-17T19:59:00.000-04:00

Sun, April 17, 2005

Bryant feels the heat over Sharia law
IT IS SIMPLY OUT OF STEP FOR A MODERN
SOCIETY TO ALLOW MEDIEVAL FORMS OF JUSTICE

By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
The Toronto Sun
http://tinyurl.com/7z48r

WHILE ATTORNEY General Michael Bryant was making headlines all last week with his plans to keep Karla Homolka on a short leash when she is released from prison, his toughest test this spring could well be the way he deals with the thorny issue of Islamic law.

Last December, former NDP attorney general Marion Boyd released a 150-page report report supporting changes to the 1991 Arbitration Act that could allow civil family law cases to be decided using sharia law, a 1,400-year-old set of Islamic rules and laws covering legal and family issues.

The province asked Boyd to assess a plan by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice to use sharia principles in settling family law matters. No decision has yet been made.

But Bryant is under pressure from his own backbench, especially from women, who fear any introduction of sharia law will be a setback for women and children.

Etobicoke Centre MPP Donna Cansfield has heard from groups in her community who fear their rights will be diminished. "Obviously, representing women and children is a concern to me so I think the safeguards dealing with the issues around equity and protection of women's and children's rights are important," says Cansfield.

WHAT PROTECTIONS?

She wants to know, "what are the protections that are required to ensure that their rights are in fact protected?"

Cansfield says she's talked to the Canadian Association of Muslim Women and a number of individual Muslim women in her community. "Some of them are saying they are not sure their community knows and understands the difference between arbitration and mediation," she says. (Arbitration is binding.)

Another Liberal, Kathleen Wynne, believes the province needs to move carefully on this. "It is a very big issue and it is a women's issue to a large extent, so I am vitally interested on how we respond to the report," says the Don Valley West MPP.

The Quebec government said emphatically recently that it would not allow sharia rules to be used in its courts.

Critics say sharia law is dismissive of women and treats them as being inferior to men. In the case of a marriage breakup, under Islamic law, the man is given custody of the children and it allows only three months of support to the woman.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the Arbitration Act already allows Jews and Catholics to use their own religious tenets in settling disputes. If Bryant disallows sharia, he could face accusations that he is discriminating against Muslims.

SIMILAR CONCERNS

MPPs from other parties have similar concerns. New Democrat Marilyn Churley says it's not just the Muslim faith that presents a problem when it comes to arbitration.

"Within all faith-based dispute mechanisms, there can be issues around patriarchy and sexism," she says. "The arbitration process is too susceptible to manipulation when dealing with the power dynamics often present in family relationships.

"It is not difficult to imagine, and indeed we heard of cases, where a woman leaving an abusive relationship may face intense pressure to agree to an arbitration process that is not in her interest."

The fact is, it is simply out of step for a modern society to allow medieval forms of justice, be it Catholic canon law, Judaic law -- or sharia.

Sure, Boyd and others may try to convince us that Sharia will only be used when a woman agrees to it. But how hard is it to intimidate a young woman who may be new to this country, may not be familiar with her rights -- and who may live in fear of what will happen if she doesn't agree?

The only sensible route for Bryant is to drop all religious abitration from the legislation. This is the 21st century and all women should be treated in the same fashion -- and equal to men in the eyes of the law.

Muslim Woman in the Christian Science Monitor: "Ontario must say 'No' to Sharia

2005-02-04T07:33:00.000-05:00

February 02, 2005

Ontario must say 'no' to Sharia

By Mona Eltahawy
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0202/p09s01-coop.html

NEW YORK – In January last year, the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council incurred the wrath of Iraqi women by ordering that Islamic law, or sharia, replace the civil code that had governed family and divorce law since the 1950s. Women from Iraq's different religious sects denounced the decision in street protests and conferences that eventually led to sharia being listed as just one of several sources of legislation in Iraq's temporary constitution.

It is that image of Iraqi women braving the streets of occupied Baghdad to protest sharia that makes it impossible to understand what former Ontario Attorney General Marion Boyd was thinking when she recommended Jan. 17 that the province allow sharia tribunals to settle family disputes for Muslims. Her report examining the issue was commissioned by current Attorney General Michael Bryant, as Ontario considers whether to let Islamic law be used in private arbitration of civil and family-law disputes when all parties agree to it.

As a Muslim woman who is familiar with the many ways sharia is abused and used against women in my own country, Egypt, and in several other Muslim countries I have reported from, I urge Mr. Bryant and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to reject Ms. Boyd's recommendations.

Many Canadian Muslims agree. The Canadian Council for Muslim Women has called Boyd's recommendations naive. A coordinator of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada has warned that these tribunals will compel women to stay in abusive relationships. Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, denounced the former attorney general's report as "multiculturalism run amok."

Boyd's recommendations seem to be aimed at compensating Muslims for the ugly Islamophobia that has surfaced in North America in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But women must not pay the price for liberal guilt.

According to most interpretations of sharia, women are not treated equally to men. For example, a woman inherits half of what a male relative does. Even more problematic, there is no consensus on sharia, which is derived from the Koran and the life and sayings of the prophet Muhammad.

So whose interpretation of sharia would Ontario Muslims follow? And who would have the authority to decide?

Would it be the Canadian Council of Muslim Theologians, for example, which in answer to a question on their website about women drivers, said, "To the extent of necessity, it is permissible for a woman to drive ... driving will not be permissible for leisure and going around unnecessarily."

Remember - this is in Canada, not Saudi Arabia.

No wonder Mr. Fatah termed Boyd's recommendation "the racism of lower expectations where under the garb of diversity, Muslims are being encouraged to ghettoize and withdraw from the mainstream."

Sharia tribunals would be set up under the Arbitration Act of 1991, which Boyd helped devise. The act allows people to forgo Canada's public court system by using private arbitration to settle civil and family-law disputes. Jews and Catholics have used the Arbitration Act for some time, but this in itself is problematic because it leads to an effectual privatization of the judicial system and strengthens the role of clergy in minority communities.

But what is wrong with Canadian civil law that religious Canadians must look elsewhere? And why is the Canadian court system shirking its responsibility to its citizens?

On the books, such religious courts are predicated on mutual consent of the parties and the condition that their outcomes respect Canadian law and human rights codes. That is easier said than done and Boyd knows it: She has said the arbitration she recommends for Muslims is "very much a case of buyer beware."

With sharia tribunals in place in Ontario, it isn't difficult to imagine the pressure that would be exerted on Muslim women to choose them over civil courts. Syed Mumtaz Ali of the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, who has promoted the idea of such tribunals for years, has already denounced Muslim opponents of sharia as not "real Muslims."

There are reports that some Muslims groups in British Columbia are awaiting the green light in Ontario before they lobby their province for sharia tribunals.

Ontario must say "no" to sharia.

Shariah in Canada: A Muslim Mum's Open Letter to the Premier of Ontario

2005-01-20T07:16:00.000-05:00

Buyer Beware?
Since when was justice a consumer product?
A Muslim Woman's Open Letter to the Premier of Ontario

By Rizwana Jafri
MuslimWakeUp!
http://tinyurl.com/5p9zw

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty,
Premier
Government of Ontario.

Dear Premier McGuinty:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rizwana Jafri, a Muslim mother of two sons, Vice Principal of a Toronto High School, and President of the Muslim Canadian Congress, in which capacity I am writing to you.

As you are aware the use of religious laws to settle family disputes through binding arbitration--as a substitute to the Ontario family law court system--has deeply divided the Muslim community and caused serious concern among women's groups and children's advocates.

For the record, the Muslim Canadian Congress is opposed to all religious courts and tribunals that trespass the public domain. Whether they are Rabbinical or Christian courts, Shariah-based Arbitration tribunals or any other religious-based quasi-judicial body, we believe that they cannot, and should not, be allowed to substitute our court and judicial system; a system based on laws created by parliamentarians like yourself, who are accountable to the electorate.

Recently, much to our shock, former Attorney General Marion Boyd recommended this practise not only be continued, but that "Muslim principles," which she failed to define, be allowed as a substitute to the Family Law Act. When asked to explain what parts of the Family Law Act were in conflict with "Muslim Principles," she refused to elaborate and evaded this question repeatedly.

As Muslims we believe that what Ms Boyd is recommending under the cover of "Muslim principles" is in fact "Shariah by stealth."

We believe Marion Boyd's report reflects her lack of understanding of the issues; the complexity of the religion; and the diversity of the Muslim communities. In addition, we believe that by invoking the "Buyer Beware" principle in matters of judiciary, Marion Boyd has reduced justice to a mere consumer commodity. This is antithetical to both Islamic and Canadian values, which are in essence one and the same. Justice is not a mere consumer product and citizens are more than retail consumers.

We also believe she had a serious conflict of interest in reviewing the very law that she had a hand in creating, as member of the Bob Rae cabinet, and should have refused to pass judgement on her own work.

I am asking you to please intervene and stop the implementation of the Marion Boyd Report, which also introduces an unprecedented attempt to privatise Ontario's Family Law and place it into the hands of private practitioners who have already started marketing their services as for-profit religious judges masquerading as alternate justice providers.

We are not alone in our opposition to introduction of Shariah into the Canadian judicial system. Many Muslim academics have voiced their concern as have some mosques and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.

Professor Omid Safi who teaches Islamic Studies at Colgate University in New York has written:
"The use of religious law as a substitute for laws created by parliament, and the establishment of a multi-tier legal system - one for average Canadians and one for Muslim Canadians, and others for Catholic or Jewish Canadians - is not only unjust, but also detrimental to the well being of all Canadian citizens."

Professor Safi, who is also Chair of the New York based Progressive Muslim Union of North America, adds another dimension to this controversy. He writes:
"We are also alarmed at the prospects of repressive Muslim governments around the world pointing to Canada, and the implementation of "shari’a" within Canada, as a justification for their oppressive legal systems. This is not a comment on Islamic jurisprudence as a whole, but rather on the repressive interpretations of shari’a found in those countries. It is unrealistic to think that the ayatollahs of Iran, the proponents of Wahabism in Saudi Arabia and other countries will not use this to promote the viability of their oppressive visions."

One of Islam's leading scholars in Europe, Professor Tariq Ramadan of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland told an Egyptian magazine there was no need for Canadian Muslims to set up their own Shariah courts, saying they are "not necessary" and that demanding such courts "is another example of lack of creativity" among Muslims.

Here in Toronto, Professor Taj Hashmi, who teaches at the Centre for Asian Research in York University, has gone a step further and urged ordinary Canadians to speak out and oppose the proposal. He writes:
"The Government alone cannot stop the formation of the Sharia Board; civil society in general and liberal Muslims in particular should come forward to stop this vice, which is neither Islamic nor Canadian in character and spirit."

Some prominent Canadians have also voiced their concern. Canada's first Muslim member of the Senate, Senator Mobina Jaffer has expressed her opposition to the Marion Boyd report while former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps has labelled Marion Boyd's proposal as "hogwash. Ms. Copps writes:
"The real question untouched in the Boyd report is why civil society would agree to religious arbitration -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or anything else -- in the first place. Have we really done all we can to examine families' experiences since such processes were given the green light in Ontario, including how many arbitrations have resulted in decisions accepted by economic dependents with few real choices? Or is this really about finding a quick solution to the backlog in our courts?"

Sheila Copps has hit the nail on the head in asking the tough question. Is this about multiculturalism or is it about cost-cutting and privatisation?

We believe that mosques, churches, temples and synagogues have an important role to play in the community, but their role should be restricted to mediation and reconciliation, not interfering with the Canadian justice system and running a parallel private-sector judiciary with self-styled religious judges for hire.

But most importantly, we believe the 1991 amendment to the Arbitration Act that allowed family disputes to be settled outside the family Law Act, was unconstitutional.

This is why we are asking your government to refer the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal to determine:

Whether the Arbitration Act confers jurisdiction, outside the Family Law Act, to resolve disputes of property, children, inheritance and estates in the family context.
If the Arbitration Act does confer such jurisdiction, whether this is constitutional.

I hope you will give serious thought to the concerns I have raised. The decision you and your cabinet will make will have a profound long-term impact on society. Just as you stood up for public education despite immense pressures from all religious lobbies, we hope that you will take the courageous decision to ensure that one law exists for all Ontarians, irrespective of the religion or race. Only then can we hope for a civic society where cohesiveness takes precedence over divisiveness.

Our position is not against religion. On the contrary, we stand for the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. However, freedom of religion does not mean that we dilute laws and strengthen the power of Rabbis, Imams and Priests over their communities; specially the most vulnerable.

Toronto Star story on Marion Boyd's Shariah Report: Muslim critics say, it is 'betrayal' of women

2005-01-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

Shariah in Canada
Report called 'betrayal' of women
Proposal backs use of Islamic principles in settling disputes
Ontario heading in 'dangerous direction,' opponents say

By CAROLINE MALLAN
Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com

A proposal to allow the use of Islamic principles in settling familydisputes in Ontario has been met with outrage by opponents of the plan.Former NDP attorney-general Marion Boyd made the recommendation yesterday ina 150-page report in which she also called for new safeguards to protect therights of women.But she ultimately concluded that "Muslim principles" should be consideredan acceptable method of religious arbitration as long as they do not violateCanadian law.

Boyd was asked by the provincial government to review the 1991 ArbitrationAct and assess whether a plan by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice touse the guiding principles of their faith in settling marital andinheritance disputes should be halted.

Catholics and Jews already have madeuse of the act, which is intended as a way of avoiding costly court fightswhen both parties to a dispute agree to do so. A divorcing couple could usethe act to decide on a division of property, for example.

Opponents were quick to condemn Boyd's report, calling it "naive" and abetrayal of women.Marilou McPhedran, counsel for the Canadian Council of Muslim Women,labelled Boyd's report "naive" in its assumptions that Muslim women wouldhave the same choices as other women.

McPhedran said many women who could beaffected are recent immigrants who might not speak English and are not givena true choice in how a divorce might be settled. "This is a dangerousdirection. It is the thin edge of the wedge. This has to be stopped now,"she said.

Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress said Boyd has lent credibilityto a system of law that has disadvantaged women in Muslim countries forcenturies."Marion Boyd today has given legitimacy and credibility to the right-wingracists who fundamentally are against equal rights for men and women," Fatah said of the endorsement of some form of sharia law.

"The proponents of sharia in Canada are not concerned about family law, they are concernedabout bringing justification for introducing sharia and legitimizing it."But Boyd repeatedly stressed that the term "sharia" is not what is being proposed by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, adding the1,400-year-old set of rules and laws covers criminal and civil matters andis often incompatible with Canadian law."We're being very clear, this is not sharia law," Boyd told a newsconference.

"This is Muslim religious principles within Canadian law." But, she conceded, in all cases of arbitration, whether religious or not, itis up to the people involved to stand up for their own rights. "It's a bit of consumer beware that I think is very real in this area."

Boyd also said in an interview later, "I'm not naïve enough to think this is the end ofit."

Although some critics are firmly opposed to the use of the Arbitration Actby any religious group, she said she couldn't "in good conscience" tell thegovernment to end it because "it would set back family law by 30 years."But anyone who interprets the report as giving priority to multiculturalismover female equality is "misreading" it: "It's a recognition that (shariaarbitrations) are already happening - the first one here was in 1982.

Butthere is no way to scrutinize them. "If they stay underground, Muslim womenwill be more vulnerable."Boyd also told the news conference she believes strengthening the existing system of arbitration, including mandating domestic violence awarenesstraining for arbitrators, will help reduce the number of informal,religious-based family dispute resolutions that happen without anyoversight.

Critics of any use of sharia law in Canada point to examples of what someMuslim societies consider to be acceptable levels of spousal support when amarriage ends - anywhere from three months to a year's worth of support -compared to a Canadian norm of much more long-term support for a formerspouse and children.

"I think Boyd made up her mind before she even started because she hasn'ttaken into consideration anything we said. It's like she didn't hear us,"said Alia Hogben, executive director of the 900-member Canadian Council ofMuslim Women.Boyd's report recommends a greater right of appeal for arbitrations, butputs the onus on Muslim women to take that step, said Hogben, "but how wouldmany women have the wherewithal to do that?"

"We just hope that the attorney-general freezes the report until a properinvestigation is done," said Homa Arjomand, head of the InternationalCampaign to Stop Sharia Courts in Canada. The campaign argued that while, technically, Muslim women will have accessto Canadian laws and court, and the legal system will undoubtedly rejectoppressive decisions, "the reality is that most women (will) be coercedsocially, economically or psychologically" into participating in shariatribunals.

Boyd's report calls on arbitrators to affirm that they have interviewed thecouple in dispute separately to determine that both parties areparticipating of their own free will and to rule out any possible domesticviolence issues.All of the groups opposed to any use of sharia said they will aggressivelypress the Liberal government and Attorney-General Michael Bryant to rejectBoyd's findings and put an end to arbitrations that rely on Muslim laws.

But Syed Mumtaz Ali, a lawyer for the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice,said he was "delighted" with Boyd's findings and added that many of the 46recommendations for strengthening the Arbitration Act came from him."It's a model for the whole world to see how sharia law can be used in aWestern society," Mumtaz Ali said in an interview. He added that whilesharia is a misnomer in terms of the type of family disputes at issue, he said it is the term most people recognize and associate with Muslim beliefsbeing applied through the law.Mumtaz Ali said Muslim principles require Muslims to believe in one God andto commit to obeying the law in the country where they live.

He said theadvantage of sharia-type arbitration is that participants are compelled bytheir religious beliefs to uphold the law, an extra onus that will make forfair treatment of all parties in the dispute."Canadian laws prevail, sharia law takes a backseat," he said of the plan heenvisions for arbitration.He said many people in the community are anxious to proceed withsharia-based arbitration and plans have been in limbo awaiting Boyd'sreport.

Len Rudner of the Canadian Jewish Congress said the group felt Boyd struck afair balance between the needs of the individuals and those of thecommunity. "She appears to have done a good job of that," he said.

Montreal's Egyptian-born Professor Nadia Khouri writes: "Keep mosque and state separate"

2005-01-15T10:39:00.000-05:00

September 21, 2004

Keep mosque and state separate

By Nadia Khouri
National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com

The irony in the Ontario government's decision to consider allowing anIslamic shariah court is that many Muslims themselves oppose the idea.Muslims, like people of other faiths, routinely consult their spiritual leaders on a variety of matters.

It's an informal affair. But granting ashariah court the power to enforce binding arbitration means that those whoinnocently seek consultations with clerics may become trapped in legalities,with religious specialists settling disputes according to the law of divine command -- passing judgment according to what the faithful must do to please God, not what the state must do to protect citizens.

Since shariah is a comprehensive law covering the minutest details of publicand private life, many Muslims are concerned by the notion of Islamicscholars setting norms of behaviour for them, with the imprimatur of theirattorney general.

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women has urged fellow Canadians to fight theAct. Homa Arjomand, a former refugee from Iran's Islamic regime and aco-ordinator of the active International Campaign Against Shariah Court inCanada, has been warning in several forums that these tribunals will compelabused women to stay in abusive relationships. After all, Surah 4:34 in theKoran, a basis for shariah, clearly says: "Good women are obedient, guardingin secret that which God has guarded.

As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, then banish them to beds apart and strikethem."Many Muslims resent such separate-but-equal moral isolationism.

A strong denunciation came from Tarek Fatah, a founder of The Muslim CanadianCongress, who called the use of religious laws to settle legal matters racist. "When somebody tolerates my mistakes ... this is the racism of lowerexpectations."

The idea that all Muslims are bound by shariah is a misconception forced onthe public by Islamists. Nothing could be more attractive to them than theidea of legally binding Muslims to shariah via arbitration. In other nationswhere shariah is enforced -- whether as the state law, as in Saudi Arabia orIran, or as part of a dual system of religious and secular laws, as in Egypt or Jordan -- open opposition by reformers and secularists condemns them topersecution, imprisonment or death.Shariah courts have been abused in other countries and could be abused here.

How would a shariah court, for example, treat an accusation of apostasy --which, if found true, would mean the apostate could not be married to aMuslim and a divorce would be necessary?Would a shariah court uphold freedom of conscience and belief, guaranteedunder section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a principleat odds with a strict reading of shariah? Would it force the accused topublicly recant, hence going against the Charter? Would it counsel divorce?

Though polygamy is illegal in many Muslim countries, it is not invalid undershariah. A man can keep a wife in Canada and other ones in another countrywithout the Canadian wife, his Canadian-born children and Canadianauthorities being able to intervene in matters of divorce, alimony andcustody -- all of which are dealt with in different ways by the four Sunniand the two Shia schools of Islamic law.

Then there is the issue of Islam's conception of contractual, temporarymarriage "for pleasure," whose character is extensively codified especiallyby the Jaafari Shia school. How would Canadian family law interpret"temporary marriage" for the "temporary wife" who may be left with permanentchildren?Multiculturalism cannot be interpreted in a manner that trumps Charterequality guarantees and the universal human rights that underlie them. Humanrights are vested in the individual, not the group.

When special powers aregranted to groups rather than to individuals, conflicts between the groups'leaders and their members are sure to arise.Who is trying to persuade the Attorney General that these courts are thesuitable venues for arbitrating disputes among Muslims? A group of shariahadvocates led by Syed Mumtaz Ali of The Islamic Institute of Civil Justice.

For two decades, it has been quietly lobbying successive Ontario governmentsto enshrine in arbitration law an Islamic Court, known as Darul Qada. Theview of Canada from Darul Qada's Web site is that of a judicial wastelandwhere, we are told, "Muslim minorities are like wandering Bedouins," with nosay in the laws of the land.

The "wandering Bedouins" have wasted no time rebuttng Darul Qada'spresumptions and opposing a shariah court. Their concerns should be heeded.
-------------------
Nadia Khouri is an Egyptian-born Canadian who teaches humanities at DawsonCollege.

Muslim Opponents of Shariah Tribunals are accused of not being "Real Muslims"

2005-01-10T07:11:00.000-05:00

Friends,

As the Shariah debate rages in Canada, one of the key proponents of the law has claimed that opponents of the Shariah are not 'real Muslims". Syed Mumtaz Ali told the Toronto Star:

"One cannot call oneself a real Muslim if one does not obey the Islamic law in such a comprehensive manner".

Adding to this, Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, another supporter of introducing Shariah in Canada, told the Toronto Star, "non-religious Muslims have no right to tell religious people what to do."

Effectively telling Muslim opponents of Shariah that while he doesn't have a problem with non-Muslim Canadians debating the issue, he wants the rest of us shut out from challenging his position.

His dictatorial edict follows an astonishing revelation made by Elmasry on Friday. He told the National Post that there may only be ONE person in all of Canada who was an expert in Shariah. He was responding to the Muslim Canadian Congress who oppose the resolving family matters using Shariah-based Arbitration. The MCC believe such Shariah courts are not only unconstitutional, but also racist, as they will further ghettoize Muslims.

Mohammad Elmasry is reported as having said:
"...there are only a handful of scholars in Canada who are fully trained in interpreting and applying Shariah law -- and perhaps as few as one..."

He also provided a rare insight into the inner workings of this self-styled Shariah arbiter. He was quoted as saying:
"The arbitrators "use gut feeling, they use common sense, and in many cases they are successful," in that their decisions are not appealed to a court or overturned."

Justice based on "gut feeling"? Scary stuff.

These statements about defining "real Muslims" and suggesting that "non-religious Muslims" not have the right to participate in this debate, should alarm Canada's Arab and Muslim population. There should be no room in our narrative for dictatorial and authoritarian sermons loaded with religious blackmail of determining "good" and "bad" Muslims and deciding who is permitted to participate in the making of the laws of this land

Read and reflect.

Tarek Fatah
-----------------------
Aug. 28, 2004. 07:25 AM

Muslim group opposes sharia law

Argues it does not protect women
Islamic body presents case to Boyd

By Tarannum Kamlani and Nicholas Keung
The Toronto Star
http://tinyurl.com/5saeg

Marion Boyd is at the centre of a storm of debate surrounding proposals to use Islamic sharia law in family disputes. Ontario's former attorney-general has been hearing from both sides of the controversial proposal since she was appointed in June by the province to review the 1991 Arbitration Act.

Boyd's review began after a public outcry against the plan, introduced by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, which wants to use existing arbitration legislation to apply a form of sharia - a 1,400-year-old body of religious law - to settle disputes in the Muslim community.

The practice would be permitted under the Arbitration Act, which allows religious groups to resolve civil family disputes within their faith, providing everyone gives their consent and the outcomes respect Canadian law and human rights codes.

But the Muslim Canadian Congress doesn't think it will work that way.

Along with several legal and women's groups, the congress has argued that sharia is flawed because it does not view women as equal and therefore cannot provide equal justice to all parties in a dispute especially on issues of divorce, child custody and division of property.

"The weakest within the Muslim community, namely the women, will be coerced (into participating) by their community," said Tarek Fatah, founder of the congress during his group's submission to Boyd earlier this week.

The group, formed two years ago, claims to have approximately 200 members across Canada.
It is demanding the province suspend the ongoing review of the use of Islamic law to settle family disputes.

It wants Boyd to refer the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Calling the sharia-based arbitration proposal by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice "racist and unconstitutional," congress lawyer Rocco Galati argued there is no such thing as a monolithic Islamic law. "No one has said what sharia law is supposed to be. There's 1.3 billion Muslims on five continents. There are many differences (among the groups)," Galati said. "There is a pretence that there is a Muslim law, just like saying there's an Asian law, an African law."
He told Boyd that "there is a confusion here between religious freedom and injecting religion into public disputes."

But Syed Mumtaz Ali, who made his presentation to Boyd on behalf of the institute, argues that freedom of religion as guaranteed under Canada's Constitution means not only freedom to practise and propagate religion but also to be able to be governed by one's religious laws in all aspects of one's life - spiritual as well as temporal, he noted.

Ali, a Canadian-trained lawyer, said the Muslim tribunal would use and apply only those provisions of the sharia, which do not clash or conflict with any Canadian law, particularly the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The use of the word "sharia" is a misnomer, he added.

"I must emphasize that we cannot, simply cannot, permit anyone to designate any Muslim arbitral tribunal as `sharia tribunal.' The name `The Muslim Court of Arbitration' (Darul Qada) is a registered business name. This was so registered primarily for the purpose of legally making it obligatory upon all not to call it `sharia Court,'" he explained in an e-mail response to the Star.
"This is very basic, fundamental and crucial to Muslims because in a faith-oriented, Islamic way of life, as distinct from a secular way of life, to obey the religious laws in this way is crucial," Ali wrote.

"One cannot call oneself a real Muslim if one does not obey the Islamic law in such a comprehensive manner. ... The Arbitration Act and the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice are not RACIAL because all races are equal under the Constitution."

Ali has received some support from the Canadian Islamic Congress, which met with Boyd 10 days ago. Its president, Dr. Mohamed Elmasry said the Muslim Canadian Congress as "non-religious Muslims have no right to tell religious people what to do."

Elmasry said religious Muslims in Canada are already using sharia to settle their disputes and the Institute proposal would add structure to the process.

"This should be viewed as an experiment," said Elmasry. In addition to an imam, Elmasry said there should be Canadian-trained lawyers, women and elders in the community represented on a panel involved with sharia-based arbitration. "The community and the government should audit the process - if it is perceived as anti-woman, it will die a natural death," he said.

Boyd will continue hearing submissions until next Friday.

Sheila Copps, Canada's former Deputy Prime Minister slams Marion Boyd's Shariah proposal. Calling her naive, says idea is "a danger to women"

2005-01-09T13:24:00.000-05:00

Friends,

Sheila Copps is former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada who writes a regular column in the Toronto newspaper, The National Post. Ms. Copps is known as being on the Left of the current ruling Liberal Party and has had close working relationshipwith the Muslim community.

In her latest column, Sheila Copps has attacked the recent proposal tolegitimize Shariah base arbitration in Canada's largest province, Ontario.

She writes:
"The real question untouched in the Boyd report is why civil society wouldagree to religious arbitration -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or anythingelse -- in the first place. Have we really done all we can to examine families' experiences since such processes were given the green light inOntario, including how many arbitrations have resulted in decisions acceptedby economic dependents with few real choices? Or is this really aboutfinding a quick solution to the backlog in our courts?"

Read and reflect.
Tarek Fatah
-----------------------------
December 24, 2004

Sharia law is a
danger to women

Sheila Copps
The National Post
http://tinyurl.com/5ac33

The report released this week recommending the use of Sharia law in Islamic family disputes in Ontario should send a shiver down the spines of women across the country.The report's author, former Ontario attorney-general Marion Boyd, recommends widening the scope of current arbitration legislation allowing consenting parties to avoid court by choosing mediation or arbitration.

Specifically, she advocates broadening the provisions of the provincial Family Law Act to allow religious arbitration including -- but not limited to -- principles drawn from Sharia law.Boyd has defended her recommendation on the basis that arbitration involving Christians, Jews and Ismaeli Muslims has been successful since the process was established 13 years ago.

But that argument would be a whole lot more convincing if allowing Sharia law wasn't opposed by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and spokespersons for the Muslim Canadian Congress.Boyd contends that it's offensive to suggest Muslim women are less capable of making choices than women of other faiths, and that because members of other religions have the option of mediation or arbitration, Muslims should not be excluded.

What's needed, she suggests, is public education to ensure Muslim women understand "the consequences of choices."What hogwash. The problem is not with women failing to know about or understand their choices -- it's with economic, religious and familial pressures depriving them of those choices in the first place.

Boyd has failed to examine whether religious arbitrations meet the test of fairness. Does she really believe that a penniless mother with four or five children, no Canadian work experience and limited English or French language skills has choices?

Is she naive enough to think there are choices when one party (usually male) holds all the economic power and the other party lives in a dependent situation? When marriages dissolve, that balance of power becomes even more precarious -- which is why a civilian legal system is critical.The real question untouched in the Boyd report is why civil society would agree to religious arbitration -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or anything else -- in the first place.

Have we really done all we can to examine families' experiences since such processes were given the green light in Ontario, including how many arbitrations have resulted in decisions accepted by economic dependents with few real choices?

Or is this really about finding a quick solution to the backlog in our courts?Even aside from faith-based decisions and processes, secular society has hardly eliminated gender inequality: It starts when we're young and continues through all aspects of life, from the classroom to the boardroom and from the home to the House of Commons.

Throw in the volatile mix of religion and the law and you have a Molotov cocktail that could blow up at any time.A few months ago, I watched a powerful television documentary exploring the lives of women living in a British Columbia religious commune where their leader went through wives like hors d'oeuvres at a Christmas party. One woman fled and was working to save those left behind, but repeated attempts to engage authorities -- from the local police to the judiciary -- achieved little. All were sympathetic, but they were either unwilling or unable to save women from physical and sexual oppression in the name of religion.

A personal experience, too, offered ample evidence of the dangers of taking religious freedoms to the extreme. As a Member of Parliament, I was once involved in helping a woman whose children were spirited out of the country during a bitter divorce proceeding. Citing cultural and religious differences, her ex-husband fled with their children to his native Pakistan despite an outstanding Canadian court order requiring the children to remain in Canada.

Working with a private investigator and the Foreign Affairs Department, she tracked the children down and went to Pakistan to retrieve them. The only thing she received for her efforts was a severe beating at the hands of her husband's family.

A Canadian court decision could not protect the woman or her children. At the time, I wrote to two dozen family members who were in contact with the children, asking for their help in securing a safe return to Canada. But all of them, including the current president of a local Muslim organization, remained silent -- and that mother has never again seen her kids.

There is no sugar-coating it: Those children were kidnapped in the name of culture and religion.The B.C. commune and the ordeals of that mother are but two examples of how faith-based traditions and customs can clash with the values and principles our civil laws strive to defend.

With the scales of justice already weighted in favour of the family breadwinner, why risk a further erosion of women's rights in the name of religion?

Tariq Ramadan: Shariah courts are "not necessary". Making these demands reflects "lack of creatvity" among Muslims

2005-01-09T13:20:00.000-05:00

Salaam Friends,

In Canada, many conservative Muslim organsiation and Mosque imams are clamouring to set up Shariah Courts to allow them to arbitrate in matters of Family Law. However, Professor Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna, and a doyen of the Muslim establishment in Europe, has come out against the Shariah Courts in Canada.

According to Dr. Ramadan there is no need for Canadian Muslims to set up their own Shariah courts, saying they are "not necessary" and that demanding such courts "is another example of lack of creativity" among Muslims.

In an interview with the Cairo magazine, Egypt Today, Tariq Ramadan said:

"The Muslims in Canada’s battle to set up shariah courts is another example of lack of creativity. Within the normative law in Canada, they have huge latitude for Muslims to propose an Islamic contract. These courts are not necessary; all they do is stress the fact that Muslims have specific laws and for the time being this is not how we want to be perceived. We need to show that our way of thinking is universal, that we can live with the law and there is no contradiction."

To read the full interview of Professor Tariq Ramadan, click here:http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2481

CBC's Natasha Fatah: Let us have "One Law for All"

2005-01-03T18:43:00.000-05:00

One Law for All

By Natasha Fatah
CBC News Viewpoint
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_fatah/20040401.html

A few years ago, a good friend of mine living in Pakistan lost her father to cancer. She is the eldest sibling in the family and as she had done her whole life, she managed all the responsibilities for the family including the funeral arrangements.

However, my friend got a rude awakening when her father's inheritance was handed out and she found that everything – the business, the jewelry, the money and all the family assets – had been distributed to her younger brother. She got nothing. Why? Because under certain interpretations of Shariah law, men are entitled to more inheritance then their sisters or wives.

Today Shariah is finding a new home in Canada. In 1991, an amendment was made to Ontario's Arbitration Act, allowing parties to settle disputes outside the courts. This was supposed to ease the overly-burdened court system and save Ontario taxpayers some money.

What it also did was open the gates in Canada for Shariah law, and a small group of Muslims in Toronto has set up a Shariah arbitration court where the arbiters will make judgments on civil matters such as divorce, inheritance and child custody. After they come to a decision they'll send the finding to a provincial judge for a stamp of approval.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert on Shariah but, this is the most widely agreed upon definition: Shariah is a set of principles that a Muslim should use to guide decisions and affairs in his or her life. It's based on the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, and the Sunnah, sayings of Prophet Muhammad. This sounds OK – ease up the pressure on the provincial courts and promote freedom of religion, right? Wrong. There is something not quite kosher here.

These supposed arbiters of justice in the Shariah court – what qualifications do these men have to make decisions on legal matters in Canada? Absolutely none. This is a self-appointed House of Lords. They don't need to know the law, they don't need to know the rules, hell, they may not even need to know the Qur'an, because they are accountable to no one.

Furthermore, if these arbiters will send their rulings to a provincial judge for a stamp of approval, isn't that admitting that the Canadian system is a better measurement of justice? Sure, there are flaws in the Canadian judicial system but at least you can challenge the politicians that make the laws and the police and judges who enforce them.

There is no formal system through which you can challenge religious clerics, the masters of the Shariah universe. And if you do challenge them, get ready to be called a blasphemer.

Of course, I understand that for some people they feel better discussing difficult personal problems with those who share a common cultural background and common values. But, Alia Hogben from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women offers this suggestion, "Why can't it be just informal mediation? Why does it have to be a binding arbitration? A binding arbitration using Shariah law can, and has been historically detrimental to women. What is there that they can solve with Shariah that they can't with a secular Canadian court?"

Hogben conducts counselling and mediation for Muslim women but she insists that if it comes to legal matters, the women should turn to the Canadian justice system.

Besides, whose version of Shariah law are we going to accept? Afghanistan's? Where women are shrouded their whole lives. Saudi Arabia's? Where they cut off your body parts if you get caught stealing. Nigeria's? Where they'll stone you to death for committing adultery. These are extreme examples but they are the reality.

You see, there is no agreed upon interpretation of Shariah because in every country where it is practised, the interpretation is based on the opinion of the individual religious cleric. There are no international standards, there are no safeguards, and the system is too insecure.

Without consensus on the interpretation how can anyone feel safe going to these religious courts?

Raheel Raza of the Muslim Canadian Congress wrote in the Toronto Star last year: "Since Shariah has always been interpreted by men, they spend more time telling women how to be proper women, thus losing sight of the actual message."

I've lived in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two countries that practise Shariah law. I love the country of my birth, and the country of my youth, and now Canada, the country of my choice. And with that choice I've agreed to live by the laws of this land.

If Shariah is the system you want then I challenge you to live in Saudi Arabia. I challenge you to give up all the freedoms you enjoy here. No more freedom of movement, to go and live where you please. No more freedom to read or write or say what you like in public. No right to challenge authority. Yes, Saudi Arabia is an example of Shariah gone horribly awry but what is the guarantee that it won't happen here?

I'm not saying that Shariah is bad or wrong. It's not about good and bad or right and wrong. This is not about religious freedom and tolerance. This is about the struggle for power and the privatization of a public institution. The people who would have you believe that a separate religion-based legal system is a form of freedom of choice are the same people who want to have private religious schools, and yes, they want them funded with public money.

The saddest part of this whole thing is the level of divisiveness it's going to cause – divisiveness within the Muslim community about interpretation, and further divisiveness between Muslims and mainstream Canadians about equality.

There's a lot of debate whether Muslim values are compatible with western democracies. I say that they are compatible, but Shariah is the wrong way to go. If we are equal citizens in this country, then let us all be equally accountable under the law.

Niaz Salimi of the Muslim Canadian Congress responds to Toronto Star article on Shariah

2005-01-02T15:46:00.000-05:00

The Editor,
The Toronto Star
One Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario

Re: Courts must have final say on arbitration
[http://tinyurl.com/5lvnh]

In his column of Tuesday, December 27, Thomas Walkom writes that "...the Muslim Canadian Congress have come out strongly against giving state sanction to Islamic rulings in family matters. As practised, they say, these rulings tend to be fundamentally unfair to women."

As far as the Muslim Canadian Congress is concerned, our opposition is not just to Shariah courts; rather, we are opposed to all religious courts irrespective whether they Rabbinical, Christian or Shariah.

We believe that if the Marion Boyd report is implemented, Ontario will enter the dangerous road of privatization of our judicial system, which will create a two-tiered level of citizenship. Like our healthcare system, the MCC believes our judicial system should also be free from for-profit operators masquerading as alternate service providers.

We also believe the 1991 amendment to the Arbitration Act that allowed family disputes to be settled outside the family Law Act, was unconstitutional.

This is why we are asking the Ontario government to refer the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal to determine:

1. Whether the Arbitration Act confers jurisdiction, outside the Family Law Act, to resolve disputes of property, children, inheritance and estates in the family context.

2. If the Arbitration Act does confer such jurisdiction, whether this is constitutional.

We believe that mosques, churches, temples and synagogues have an important role to play in the community, but their role should be restricted to mediation and reconciliation, not interfering with the Canadian justice system and running a parallel private-sector judiciary with self-styled religious judges for hire.

Also, the MCC believes that by invoking the "Buyer Beware" principle in matters of judiciary, Marion Boyd has reduced justice to a mere consumer commodity. This is antithetical to both Islam and Canadian values, which are often one and the same.

Niaz Salimi
Secretary General
Muslim Canadian Congress

Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom: Religious Arbitration is "recipe for discrimination"

2005-01-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

Dec. 28, 2004

Courts must have
final say on arbitration

By THOMAS WALKOM
The Toronto Star
http://tinyurl.com/698oz

Former Attorney General Marion Boyd's report on the use of Islamic law in Ontario has drawn considerable flak. Much of the reaction is ill-considered; some verges on hysteria. To some, the very idea of Islamic arbitrators solving civil disputes produces images of faithless wives being stoned.

In fact, a few Islamic "courts" already exist in Ontario and no one has been stoned yet. As well, other groups — particularly Orthodox and Conservative Jews — take advantage of Ontario's broadly written arbitration act to use their own religious rulings in civil disputes and to ensure that these rulings are legally enforced.

In effect, Boyd is asking: What's wrong with all Muslims doing the same thing?

Phrased that way, few can disagree. But the real issue has nothing to do with Muslims. Rather it has to do with a more fundamental question: Should different kinds of people living in the same province be governed by different kinds of laws?

The philosophy behind arbitration is laudable. Many private issues can be solved outside the courts. Ontario's 1991 Arbitration Act (passed when Boyd was minister responsible for women's issues in Bob Rae's New Democratic Party government) is built on this notion.

Its essence is this: In certain civil and family law disputes, disputants are permitted to settle matters under any set of laws they wish. If they want to use Roman Catholic canon law, that's fine. If they want to use Togo's commercial law, that's fine too.

There are two main restrictions. First, both sides must agree to the set of rules they choose to be bound by. Second, the arbitrator's remedy cannot be illegal in terms of Ontario secular law.
Hence, no stoning.

The key to the 1991 act, however, is that once delivered, a ruling is legally binding. Even if it is based on laws that have no status in Ontario, it is enforceable in Ontario courts.

For commercial disputes, this poses little problem. Family disputes, however, particularly those involving divorce, child custody and support payments, are trickier.

When passed in 1991, the act attracted little attention. Religious groups have long made use of religious law. But most disputes, such as annulments or religious divorces, are handled outside the act and are thus legally unenforceable.

A Catholic denied an annulment under canon law may still receive a secular divorce.
Jewish rabbinical courts make greater use of the act, Boyd writes. But even here, the numbers are small. In only about 30 cases a year do rabbinical courts issue edicts (usually on matters of property division and custody) that require secular court enforcement.

Islam's Ismaili sect has long had an organized arbitration system. And a Toronto Sunni mosque has operated tribunals based on Islamic law since 1982.

Given all of this, what's the problem?

Quite a bit, say some Muslims. Indeed, it has been the complaints of the faithful that have fired this controversy, not the prejudices of the ignorant. Both the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and the Muslim Canadian Congress have come out strongly against giving state sanction to Islamic rulings in family matters. As practised, they say, these rulings tend to be fundamentally unfair to women.

These critics argue that Muslim women will be under tremendous pressure to accept Islamic court rulings even though, technically, they need not do so.

Boyd's response is that informal Islamic courts already make judgments, some of which are contrary to Canadian law (she cites cases of underage girls being forced to marry).

Better to regularize matters by bringing these courts under the general umbrella of the Arbitration Act, she says. To this end, she recommends keeping the principle of religious courts but strengthening the Arbitration Act to ensure that all are treated fairly.

For those who insist that religious rules must carry secular legal weight, this makes sense. For the rest of us though, it does not.

Boyd's report envisions a world in which people carry their own laws (she calls them personal laws) wherever they go. In her view, an immigrant to Canada is subject to both Canadian law and — if he wishes — to certain laws of his native land.

At a fuzzy, theoretical level, this may seem fair. Practically, however, it is a recipe for discrimination.

The Ontario government cannot ban Muslims from using the Arbitration Act. That in itself would be discriminatory. But it can follow Quebec's lead by amending the act to ensure that, in family matters at least, all religious tribunals confine themselves to mediation and give secular courts the final say.

No one disputes that different people have different traditions. But laws are not the same as traditions. Laws are the expression of the broadest community.

Salvation may come from God. In democracies, laws come from the people. They should be made by duly elected legislatures. In the final instance, they should be interpreted and judged by the courts those legislatures set up.

York University's Taj Hashmi: "Sharia Is Neither Islamic, nor Canadian"

2005-01-02T14:41:00.000-05:00

Friends,

Prof. Taj Hashmi teaches at the Centre for Asian Research in York University, Toronto.

In this article, Prof. Hashmi argues that far from being a necessity for Muslims, Sharia is in fact "anti-Islamic". He is urging ordinary people to step forward in their opposition to the Marion Boyd Report. He writes:

"The Government alone cannot stop the formation of the Sharia Board; civil society in general and liberal Muslims in particular should come forward to stop this vice, which is neither Islamic nor Canadian in character and spirit."

Read and reflect.

Tarek Fatah
---------------------------------------
Sharia Is Neither
Islamic, nor Canadian

By Taj Hashmi
MuslimWakeup.Com
http://tinyurl.com/4zo4v

Of late the proposed introduction of a Sharia Arbitration Board in Ontario has created much controversy, among both Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians. Former attorney-general Marion Boyd's 150-page report favouring the introduction of Sharia, or "Muslim principles" (in her language), in the proposed Arbitration Board has become the proverbial last straw.

While the proponents justify the Sharia Board in the name of equal opportunity for the Muslim community, the opponents regard such a move as being contrary to Canadian constitution and anticipate gross violations of Muslim women's right to custody, inheritance and post-divorce alimony.

To the uninformed, Marion Boyd sounds quite "reasonable" in the way she has argued her case. In her view the "Muslim principles" should be considered an acceptable method of religious arbitration as long as they do not violate Canadian law - very similar to how Catholics, Jews and Ismailis have made use of a 1991 Act.

Surprisingly, she tells us: "We're being very clear, this is not Sharia law."

What is even more surprising is that Syed Mumtaz Ali, the main advocate of Sharia arbitrations in Ontario, is "delighted" with the Boyd Report given that many of the 46 recommendations of the Report came from him. Ali glorifies the proposed Board as "a model for the world to see how Sharia law can be used in a Western society." The ambivalence in Boyd’s and Ali’s statements on the true colour of the Report smacks of duplicity. It seems, Boyd is playing a hide and seek game with us, trying to introduce Sharia with a different name.

Although we cannot agree with the sensational view that some "fundamentalist" groups want the Sharia Board as a stepping-stone to eventually create an independent legal system for Canadian Muslims, we can agree that Canada’s adopting Sharia law may legitimize the excesses of Sharia committed elsewhere in the Muslim World.

Problematically, both the adherents and opponents of Sharia believe that the code was derived from the Quran and is as old as Islam itself. Ordinary Muslims also consider Sharia to be divine law. Contrary to these assumptions, Sharia is hardly Quranic in origin as the Quran contains 80-odd verses, which are prescriptive or regulative. The main sources of Sharia are thousands of spurious Hadiths or "sayings" of Prophet Muhammad, collected haphazardly more than 200 years after his death. Muslim jurists' legal opinions collected during the 8th and 12th centuries based on their understanding of the Quran, traditions of the Prophet, local customs and above all, common sense, are collectively known as the Sharia.

Once we consider the following facts, we come closer to resolving the Sharia debate:
1) Sharia is authoritative, not infallible;
2) The Sunni Sharia code went through major transformation and changes, but only up to the 16th century;
3) Shiite Sharia is still subject to changes and modifications; and,
4) The moral principles of the Quran outweigh its legal principles (for example, while slavery, concubinage and polygamy are tolerated in Islam for a specific historical era, the Quran does not promote or encourage these practices).

It is quite puzzling that secular Canada should toy with the idea of incorporating Sharia into its legal system while several Muslim countries are gradually replacing the Sharia with secular codes and some have already done away with it. Canada should be even more cautious about implementing Sharia, as there are very few Islamic scholars in the country, qualified enough to interpret the Quran and the teachings of Islam.

It is interesting that Dr Mohamed Elmasry (a mathematics professor at Waterloo University, not an Islamic scholar), controversial for his comments on Jews and his classification of anti-Sharia Muslims as "not religious", also thinks that there could be as few as "only one Muslim scholar in Canada" capable of interpreting the Sharia. Paradoxically, he is an ardent advocate of a Sharia Arbitration Board in Ontario.

Again, as it appears in Chapter 4 (Sura Nissa) of the Quran, only immediate family members of Muslim couples may arbitrate in matters relating to divorce and custody, there is no room for outsiders to arbitrate.

And again, whose Sharia are we talking about? There are at least four Sunni and scores of Shiite sects, each with its own Sharia code. While the Wahhabi and other Muslim sects sanction female genital mutilation in the name of Islam and Sharia, the official Iranian Shiism endorses temporary marriage (Muta or Segha) between a man and a woman for a day, week, month or year.

Some Muslims, on the basis of wrong interpretations of the Quran, justify polygamy and even consider wife beating permissible in Islam. Are Canadians willing to allow the implementation of these varying versions of Sharia in this country?

I think we should think carefully before taking such a rash move. Once we allow a Sharia Board to meddle with the conjugal problems of Muslim couples, the Ontario government would simply fail to protect half-educated, uninformed and dependent Muslim women from being abused in the name of Islam.

All concerned should learn that what the Quran has given to women, Sharia has taken away from them. Examples abound. While men and women are equally held responsible for adultery in the Quran, which prescribes 80 lashes for the offenders each, the Sharia is particularly harsh on the adulteress, prescribing the death penalty for both the offenders.

Since Sharia is not infallible and is subject to change and modifications, there is no need to rush for its implementation anywhere, let alone Ontario, until the emergence of a Muslim Martin Luther. Unless Islam goes through its Reformation and the Muslim World undergoes a total transformation to adapt to modern, liberal democratic, secular and urban cultures of enlightenment and tolerance, no one should advocate the cause of Sharia in Canada.

Marion Boyd and like minded non-Muslim well wishers of the Canadian Muslim community should learn more about Sharia, Islam and Muslims. The advocates of a Sharia Board should realise that Ontario Muslims do not have to have a religious arbitration board only because the Catholics, Jews and Ismailis have their own boards.

The Ontario government should not try to do "justice" to the Muslim community through comparison with the Catholics or other communities, as apples cannot be compared with oranges.

The Canadian government should not pay heed to the romantic and utopian views of the Muslim Diaspora, which is unaware of the anti-Islamic nature of the Sharia. Some members of the Diaspora, we have reasons to believe, want to come to the limelight as leaders of the Muslim community through the Sharia Board as advisers, arbitrators and "experts" of Sharia law.

However, the Government alone cannot stop the formation of the Sharia Board; civil society in general and liberal Muslims in particular should come forward to stop this vice, which is neither Islamic nor Canadian in character and spirit.
---------------------------
Dr. Taj Hashmi is a professor at the York Centre for Asian Research, York University, Toronto and a member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

Globe & Mail's Margaret Wente: "The state should not give its blessing to Muslim courts"

2005-01-02T14:38:00.000-05:00

Thursday, December 23, 2004

The state should not give
its blessing to Muslim courts

By MARGARET WENTE
Globe and Mail
http://tinyurl.com/3ref6

I could have sworn we had separation between church and state in Canada. I could have even sworn we had one law for all. But I was wrong. Because if you're a Muslim woman in Ontario, your divorce and custody arrangements may soon be decided by your friendly local imam -- with the full blessing of the state.

Pinch me, quick. What century is this, anyway? I thought the case against sharia courts was so obvious that this wretched idea would quickly expire. But I was wrong. This week a former NDP politician named Marion Boyd recommended that the province go ahead with them. She told us not to worry, because this is really all about "protecting choice." And since Ms. Boyd has impeccable feminist credentials, Muslim courts must be a good thing for Muslim women.

Alia Hogben thinks not. She is president of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. She thinks Ms. Boyd is being naive. Perhaps that's because Ms. Hogben knows a great deal more about Muslim women than Ms. Boyd does. "We're all for religious rights," she says. "But we want a balance between religious rights and women's equality rights."

Ms. Boyd was responsible for Ontario's Arbitration Act, which was passed in 1991, so I suppose you can't blame her for defending it. It allows people to bypass the public court system by using private arbitration -- including private religious courts -- to settle civil and family-law disputes. Theoretically, these courts must conform with the law of the land, and their decisions can be appealed. But theory is one thing, and reality is something else.

Imagine, for example, an immigrant Pakistani woman who has limited education, speaks no English, and is utterly dependent on her husband. Imagine she and her husband divorce. In Muslim family law, the husband usually gets custody of the kids. He may stop supporting her entirely after a short time and keep nearly all the family assets. He may send her back to Pakistan and keep the kids here. All this is okay under the law, so long as she agrees to it.

Ms. Boyd has promised all sorts of safeguards so that a woman can appeal a decision she thinks is unfair. All the woman has to do is overcome the immense social pressure to conform, and withstand the shame and ostracism she will experience if she tries to defy the spiritual leaders of the community and her entire family.

To address this power imbalance, Ms. Boyd has promised to "ensure that our public legal education helps all women understand the consequences of choices." How enlightened.

The Arbitration Act has already been used by Jewish, Catholic and Ismaili Muslim courts, without incident. But chances are that women in these groups are more assimilated into Canadian life than your average newcomer from Pakistan. As well, Western religions have accepted the separation of church and state for quite some time now. Islam has never done any such thing.

The person leading the movement for private sharia-based courts is a man named Syed Mumtaz Ali, who heads the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. He has made various contradictory comments about how binding he expects these private rulings to be. He once said that "a Muslim who would choose to opt out at this stage [after a private court's decision] would be guilty of a far greater crime than a mere breach of contract -- this could be tantamount to blasphemy-apostasy."

How equal are Muslim women in their own communities? Well, they're not allowed to pray alongside men. They're not allowed to preach or lead prayers. Last month, a liberal mosque in Toronto, whose members are from Guyana and the Caribbean, broke new ground by allowing a woman to preach a 10-minute sermon to celebrate the end of Ramadan. But other mosques aren't even thinking of it. "No mosque in Canada would have a female giving a sermon," said a spokesman for the Islamic Imams Council of Canada.

For what it's worth, most women are firmly on Ms. Hogben's side of this issue, not Ms. Boyd's -- including the YWCA. Since last spring, when the sharia controversy broke, Ms. Hogben's phone has been ringing off the hook. "We are getting calls from all over the world saying, 'What's going on there?' " she says.

Like other people who are worried about women's and children's rights, Ms. Hogben thinks that family issues involving divorce and custody are too important to be settled in private. "We want to say to all our fellow Canadians: Write the government and say what you think," she pleads.
Here's what I think: Religious laws have no place in the legal system.

One Canadian law should be good enough for all. Period. Full stop.

Sharia Controversy in Canada makes it to Pakistani newspaper. Daily Times reports from Washington

2005-01-02T14:17:00.000-05:00

December 22, 2004

Controversy rages
in Canada over Sharia

By Khalid Hasan
The Daily Times, Lahore
http://tinyurl.com/3k6u6

WASHINGTON: A battle between progressive and conservative Muslim groups isunderway in the Canadian province of Ontario where the latter are demandinglegal cover for arbitration of disputes under Sharia law.The move is bitterly opposed by the Muslim Canadian Congress.

Tarek Fatah, one of its founding members and a leading voice in Canada for progressiveIslam, said were arbitration under Sharia to become law, it would be a"Christmas gift to the Mullahs of Iran and Saudi Arabia who will berejoicing this decision and using it to validate their own oppressivegovernments."

He said the recommendation that Sharia become law governing arbitrationamong Muslims in Ontario was given by a former Canadian politician Ms MarionBoyd in a 150-page report that amounted to "succumbing to pressures from themost right-wing religious conservatives in Canada." He said, "On the coldest day of the year, she has thrown a wet blanket over the hopes of millions ofMuslims worldwide who are struggling to free themselves from religious oppression and misogyny being practised in the name of Islam by using Sharia."

He called the move "racist and unconstitutional," stressing thatthe Arbitration Act should not continue to allow disputes to be arbitratedusing religious law.The Muslim Canadian Congress said in a statement that it "demands that theOntario government reject Marion Boyd's recommendation and refer the matterof Sharia-based Arbitration to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Such a referenceshould ask the Court to determine whether the Arbitration Act confersjurisdiction, outside the Family Law legislation in disputes of property,children, inheritance and estates in the family context. And, if it does,whether it is constitutional."

Tarek Fatah told Daily Times in a phone interview, "Behind the guise of religious tolerance and accommodation, the Muslim community is facing discriminatory ghettoisation and marginalisation. Establishing a substandard multi-tiered judicial process in matters of family law, is racist and unconstitutional.

The Muslim Canadian Congress feels that authorising andgiving an official stamp of approval to Sharia-based tribunals will deprivethe Muslim community of its share in Canadian society." He said in itssubmission to Ms Boyd last August, the Congress had stated that by placingthe Muslim community "out of sight" the government only plays into the handsof the extremist political agenda of a certain sector of Muslim Canadians who are proponents of "Muslim Law", an uncodified system, much of which is antithetical to Islam and the Canadian Constitution.

Furthermore, it plays equally into the hands of the intolerant and otherwise racist segments ofCanadian non-Muslim society who want nothing better than to exclude Muslims from the mainstream.

In her report, Ms Barry also called for new safeguards to protect the rightsof women, while recommending that "Muslim principles" should be considered an acceptable method of religious arbitration as long as they do not violateCanadian law.

She was asked by the Ontario provincial government to reviewthe 1991 Arbitration Act and assess whether a plan by the Islamic Institutefor Civil Justice to use the guiding principles of their faith in settlingmarital and inheritance disputes should be halted.

Catholics and Jews already have made use of the act, which is intended as a way of avoidingcostly court fights when both parties to a dispute agree to do so. Adivorcing couple could use the act to decide on a division of property.

Marilou McPhedran, counsel for the Canadian Council of Muslim Women,labelled Boyd's report "naive" in its assumptions that Muslim women wouldhave the same choices as other women. She said many women who could beaffected are recent immigrants who might not speak English and are not givena true choice in how a divorce might be settled. "This is a dangerousdirection. It is the thin edge of the wedge. This has to be stopped now," she added.

Ms Boyd reacted to the criticism by asserting that the term"Sharia" is not what is being proposed by the Islamic Institute for CivilJustice, adding that the 1,400-year-old set of rules and laws covers criminal and civil matters and is often incompatible with Canadian law.

"We're being very clear, this is not Sharia law. This is Muslim religious principles within Canadian law," she pointed out. Although some critics are firmly opposed to the use of the Arbitration Act by any religious group, she said she couldn't "in good conscience" tell the government to end it because "it would set back family law by 30 years."

She said, "It's a recognitionthat (Sharia arbitrations) are already happening - the first one here was in1982. But there is no way to scrutinize them. "If they stay underground,Muslim women will be more vulnerable."

Syed Mumtaz Ali, a lawyer for the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, expressed delight with the Boyd findings and claimed that many of the 46 recommendations for strengthening the Arbitration Act had come from him. "It's a model for the whole world to see how Sharia law can be used in aWestern society," Mumtaz Ali said in a newspaper interview, adding that while Sharia is a misnomer in terms of the type of family disputes at issue, it is the term most people recognise and associate with Muslim beliefs being applied through the law.

Muslim principles, he argued, require Muslims to believe in one God and to commit to obeying the law in the country where they live. He said the advantage of Sharia-type arbitration is that participants are compelled by their religious beliefs to uphold the law, an extra onus that will make for fair treatment of all parties in the dispute."