Islam and Australian values

Conflicts

This is a list I am putting together of apparent conflicts between Islam and Australian values. It comes from this discussion:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1215058243

Islam differs from what most Australians typically think of as religion in that it doubles as a system of government. Muslims are commanded to live by the local laws if they are living in a non-Muslim state, but the mechanism for turning a non-Muslim state into a Muslim one is ambiguous. Hostility towards Islam is considered justification for conquest. Such hostility seems inevitable if a large group of people try to undermine our values and system of government.

• Theocracy: Islam requires establishment of theocracy. Democracy is forbidden. Muslims may elect a representative to implement Islamic law, but that representative has no mandate to implement anything other than Islamic law. Candidates are limited to the most learned Islamic Scholars. Islam even forbids the 'Islamic' party of Australia and forbids people from voting for it. Islam also requires the resurrection of the Caliphate, which would mean a return to the bad old days of expansionist military empires trying to take over the world.

• Apostasy: The penalty for a Muslim who rejects Islam is death. Some Muslims think the death penalty is reserved for treasonous apostates only and that apostasy itself carries no penalty.

• Freedom of religion: Islam is tolerant of Christianity and Judaism, both in both practice and in theory. However it is not tolerant of polytheism, non-Abrahamic religions, atheism, or new Islamic 'cults' that are based on Islam but claim new prophets since Mohammed. Penalty?

• Adultery: The penalty for adultery (extramarital sex) is death by stoning. Only the married participants are stoned to death.

• Fornication: The penalty for fornication (premarital sex) is 100 lashes. The penalty may be waived if the fornicators were not given the opportunity to marry before sex (eg because they couldn't afford it).

• Homosexuality: The penalty is the same as for adultery or fornication, depending on whether you are married. This would only take place once Australia became a theocracy. Very few gays would actually be executed because 'apparently' homosexuality simply disappears under Islam. That is, it is not driven underground by the death penalty, rather men just stop having sex with each other because they are Muslims. Four witnesses are necessary to secure a conviction and punishment.

• Age of consent: If there's grass on the wicket, it's time to play cricket. The penalty for sex with a prepubescent child is death by stoning.

• Polygamy: A man may have up to four wives. A woman may have only one husband. She only needs one, as he provides whatever she needs. A Muslim man may take a Jewish or Christian wife, but not an atheist one or one from a 'non-Abrahamic' religion. A Muslim woman may only marry a Muslim man.

• Slavery: Slavery has traditionally been accepted in Islam. However the Koran was 'reinterpretted' around the end of the 19th century to outlaw it. Several African states still practice slavery and claim support for it under Islam. Not surprisingly, slavery of women was the last form to die out.

• Music: Musical instruments are generally forbidden, as they are 'pure evil'. Some Muslims consider singing to be illegal, while others will accept singing and possibly instruments provided the message of the song is acceptable, and also depending on the occasion (eg a wedding).

• Alcohol: All intoxicants are forbidden.

• Clothing: A woman must cover everything except her face and hands. Her clothes must not be too tight fitting, in case her figure can be made out. Penalty????

• Theft: Penalty is getting your hand cut off, unless your circumstances compelled you to steal (eg to provide food for your family). Cleptomaniacs would get their hand cut off.

• Discrimination: All Muslims must serve in the military. A tax will be imposed on non-Mulims, unless they also serve. There can be Islamic courts for Muslims, Christian courts for Christians, Jewish courts for Jews etc. Criminals will not 'forum shop' for the most lenient court because they will fear the wrath of God.

I am still not sure how 'hard' Islam requires it's followers to 'lobby' for these changes. There appears to be some confusion on this issue.

Can Islam Adapt?

It is important not to view Islam, or compare it with other religions, in a historical vaccuum. The rampant conservatism in the middle east is no doubt attributable to the longevity of the Ottoman empire and recent western 'progressive' influence which has been just as negative as positive. The 'closure of the gates of ijtihad' (cessation of religious enquiry) some time during or after the 10th century no doubt played a role. However this closure was more by consensus than by Koranic decree, so ultimately there is nothing ruling out a reopening. Western society took a long time to adopt separation of church and state as a core value. While Islam may appear to rule this out more directly, it also has an inbuilt mechanism for change - abrogation. Islam requires its followers to contribute productively to any new society they move to. While this may be reassuring for the short term outlook, in the long term it does nothing to rule out a return to military conquest. On the upside, the abolition of slavery creates a valuable precedent for modern theologists to challenge what seem to be core tenets of Islam. Inevitably, Islam will undergo significant reform at some point in the future, or drag the rest of the world back into barbarism. It is crucial that the west allow this to happen, and not 'poison the well' by making the Muslim world associate western values with oppression and decadence.

European Court of Human Rights and Sharia Law

In 2001, nearly two months before the 9/11 attacks, the European Court of Human Rights determined that "the institution of Sharia law and a theocratic regime, were incompatible with the requirements of a democratic society."

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/European-Court-of-Human-Rights-RefahPartisi2001jude.html

On 16 January 1998 the Constitutional Court made an order dissolving the RP on the ground that it had become a "centre of activities against the principle of secularism". It also declared that the RP’s assets were to be transferred by operation of law to the Treasury. The Constitutional Court further held that the public declarations of the RP’s leaders, and in particular Necmettin Erbakan, Şevket Kazan and Ahmet Tekdal, had a direct bearing on the constitutionality of the RP’s activities. Consequently, it imposed a further sanction in the form of a ban on their sitting in Parliament or holding certain other forms of political office for a period of five years.

The Court considered that, when campaigning for changes in legislation or to the legal or constitutional structures of the State, political parties continued to enjoy the protection of the provisions of the Convention and of Article 11 in particular provided they complied with two conditions: (1) the means used to those ends had to be lawful and democratic from all standpoints and (2) the proposed changes had to be compatible with fundamental democratic principles. It necessarily followed that political parties whose leaders incited others to use violence and/or supported political aims that were inconsistent with one or more rules of democracy or sought the destruction of democracy and the suppression of the rights and freedoms it recognised could not rely on the Convention to protect them from sanctions imposed as a result.

The Court held that the sanctions imposed on the applicants could reasonably be considered to meet a pressing social need for the protection of democratic society, since, on the pretext of giving a different meaning to the principle of secularism, the leaders of the Refah Partisi had declared their intention to establish a plurality of legal systems based on differences in religious belief, to institute Islamic law (the Sharia), a system of law that was in marked contrast to the values embodied in the Convention. They had also left in doubt their position regarding recourse to force in order to come to power and, more particularly, to retain power.