As Canadian Muslim women following the sharia, the recent accusations that we are being left to the "mercy of a fundamentalist religion" (Rosie DiManno, May 24) are offending — especially since we follow the Islamic law, secure with a perfect sense of equality between the sexes.

The sharia cannot be classified as "evil'' just because chauvinistic governments, with intent to raise their self-worth rather than strictly follow the sharia's injunctions, misuse it. Nor can the sharia laws be judged according to the opinions of some women unfortunate enough to have been mistreated under a dictatorship claiming to be Islamic. Beating or hurting one's wife is not permitted in Islam; only a slight tap that doesn't cause any pain with a miswaak (toothstick) is allowed; anything further is reprehensible.

In a time dubbed the "Age of Ignorance," when women in Arabia were little less than slaves to be gambled away and traded, property to be handed down through a line of sons or daughters buried alive because they were not male, Islam and its sharia came down and gave women the right to vote, own property and dispose of it as they desired. It gave them the right to reject or accept their suitors, more than a millennium before the first feeble cries of the suffrage movement started asking for these basic rights. After all, it is for a reason that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, and that most of its converts are women.

So, even if you don't believe in Islam, please show a little respect to the religion that raised the status of women from the position of "mindless possessions of men'' to their "twin halves" (Prophet Muhammad).

Khansa xxx and Nabila xxx

Ken Stagg writes that having a sharia tribunal is proof of multiculturalism run amok. He asks: Should we have laws for every ethnic community in Canada?

First, sharia is a religious code not an ethnic anomaly. Very few religions have the jurisprudence as Islam does — the Jewish people being a prime exception. They have their religious tribunals; why cannot Muslims?

Are we less Canadian because we feel our personal and family issues should be settled by the values of our religion and not the values of others? Is it Canadian to cast aside your religion, ethnicity, language preference etc. just because it does not fit the European value paradigm?

A unique opportunity awaits when these laws [are] applied without any cultural or ethnic baggage they can be just and non-discriminatory
 

Mubin xxx

The blanket call to stop Muslims from applying their religious law in civil disputes amounts to nothing short of religious discrimination. Those opposing the application of sharia laws hold a very narrow understanding. Other religious and ethnic communities have been using their own personal laws to settle their civil disputes for years. No one raised their eyebrows then.

Why target Muslims alone? Are Muslims the children of a lesser God or are they second-class citizens in Canada?

Women are discriminated against and abused even in Western countries and, at many times, they do not report spousal abuse to the authorities. Only 10 per cent of sexual crimes against women are reported in Canada. Are the opponents of sharia going to launch a movement to scrap the Western and Canadian judicial systems as well?

A part of the blame for creating this shariaphobia also goes to those spearheading the sharia campaign in Ontario for creating confusion by making reckless statements. Contrary to the claims of Syed Soharwardy, sharia laws can be and have been customized according to country-specific contexts. The application of sharia laws differs from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia to India. In India for example, only Muslim family laws have been incorporated into the mainstream judicial system whereas the criminal laws have been left out. No one has been stoned to death for adultery and no hands have been cut off for stealing.

Sharia laws when applied without any cultural or ethnic baggage are just and non-discriminatory. Contrary to the widespread false perception, women have the right to divorce (when a provision is made for it in the prenuptial contract) and there have been many instances where the custody of children has been awarded to the mother if it was deemed to be in the best interests of the child.

Canadian Muslims have a unique opportunity to develop a trendsetting approach to the application of sharia in multicultural settings in a globalized world which is in sync with Islamic principles as well the foundational and legal principles of specific countries. Unfortunately, due to a lack of genuine scholarship, sectarian differences and the current wave of worldwide Islamophobia that doesn't seem to be a possibility in the near future.

Mohammed xxx

I am a Muslim Canadian woman. Does coming from a Muslim country automatically mean that a person, especially a woman, knows nothing about equal rights? Perhaps, we should ask the democratically-elected president of the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, a woman, or perhaps we should ask the former prime minister of the second largest Muslim country in the world, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan?

Some of the women featured in the article may have seen hell in Afghanistan and Iran but if their faith is so weak that it flickers due to the backwardness, oppression and chauvinism of a bunch of men misinterpreting Islamic teachings, they are in the minority.

With 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, surely some of them are illiterate and stripped of all their rights.

Amina xxx 

By MARTIN xxx
director, Centre for Jewish Studies, York University
Wednesday, June 2, 2004 

Toronto -- As an observant Canadian Jew I am bewildered and troubled by voices I have heard suggesting that limits be put on the religious freedom of Muslims in Canada. We have read recently (Life Under Sharia, In Canada? by Margaret Wente -- May 29) about how allegedly dangerous it is for Muslim sharia courts to have the status that Canadian law grants to any other arbitration panel, secular or religious.

Canadian law allows two people who have a dispute either to turn to an official court of law or, if both parties agree, to turn to an arbitration panel. Civil courts have the power to force someone to appear; no one can be required to appear before an arbitration panel.

Jewish religious courts have been functioning well in Canada for many years under the protection of laws that regulate arbitration. Very few Jews make use of them, but they do serve a crucial role for the most meticulously observant.

Neither halakhah (Jewish law) nor sharia (Islamic law) is identical to Canadian secular law. But if Canadian law allows arbitration to be done by panels of people not trained in Canadian law, and if our country believes in freedom of religion, surely Muslim arbitration panels must be given every freedom granted to other arbitration panels.