SHARIA COURTS IN CANADA!

Estimates about the number of Muslims living in Canada range from 600,000 to about a million. Because of Canada's liberal immigration policy, many more Muslims arrive each year. Yet, just as in Europe, Muslims in Canada are not assimilating. Instead, they prefer their own culture and values to that of the West. The most recent example of this lack of assimilation is the institution of Muslim courts in the province of Ontario.

The origin of these Islamic courts lies in a 1991 Ontario law that permits arbitration according to religious principles. Although these Islamic courts do not deal with criminal matters, their existence raises questions about the desire of Muslims to assimilate to Western culture and values, and especially about the rights of woman.

According to an article in the Washington Post (April 28, 2004), DeNeen L. Brown writes, ''thousands of ...Muslims, taking advantage of a provision of the law in the province of Ontario, can now decide some civil disputes under sharia, (Islamic law based in the Koran) including family disagreements and inheritance, business and divorce issues, using tribunals that include imams, Muslim elders and lawyers. While it is less than full implementation of sharia, local leaders consider it a significant step.''

If local Muslim leaders consider these Islamic courts a significant step, then many women in Canada do not. These women take issue with a difficult passage in the Koran that states: ''Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard (Surah 4:34).'' Some women interpret this passage to mean that in Muslim societies guided by Islamic law, women are second class citizens.

Viewing the establishment of Islamic courts in Canada as a threat to woman, Haydar Ketabchi writes, ''The threat of implementing Islamic courts in Canada under the pretext of 'religious freedom,' 'tolerance' and 'cultural sensitivity' must be taken seriously and exposed as the Islamist's most recent organized attempt to institutionalize male domination, gender apartheid, xenophobia, and Islamic law around the world. Under the aegis of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (IICJ), Islamists have organized to impede women's rights and individual liberties.''

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