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02/17/08 Opinion-Editorial, published in The Oregonian (Oregon)
JUSTICE IN ISLAM
Sunday, February 17, 2008
HARRIS ZAFAR
(Click Here for Original Article)
Imagine this scene: A group of colleagues enters Starbucks to use the wireless Internet. They order coffee, find a table and sit down with their laptops. They are then approached by a mob of men known as the "religious police," who arrest the one woman in the group for sitting with men who are not related to her. In court, instead of being declared guilty or not guilty, she is called a sinner and thrown in jail.
How does this sound? Unrealistic? Well, believe it because this is exactly what happened recently to a U.S. businesswoman in Saudi Arabia who went to a Starbucks with an unrelated male colleague. Though wearing the traditional headscarf and long black coat, she was arrested, strip-searched, forced to sign false confessions and called a sinner.
This is an impractical attempt to force religious practices onto people. Saudi Arabia has become infamous for its religious police (known by the Arabic word "mutaween"), who have the power to arrest unrelated men and women caught socializing; seize products regarded as "un-Islamic"; and enforce Islamic dress codes and dietary laws.
In March 2002, these police forcibly barred schoolgirls from escaping a burning school in Mecca because the girls were not wearing headscarves and black coats. Consequently, 15 girls died and 50 were injured.
Last summer, they also arrested and deported every member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim Community who were praying in a private residence, simply because they disagreed with the sect's moderate views.
As a Muslim who understands and follows true Islamic tenets, such cases sadden and infuriate me. The whole idea of "religious police" is absurd. Religion cannot be imposed on anyone. The Holy Quran openly declares in Chapter 2, verse 257: "There shall be no compulsion in religion."
Islam finds its roots in Saudi Arabia. Yet women in that kingdom particularly face discrimination in matters like education, employment and the justice system. Although they make up 70 percent of university enrollment, women comprise just 5 percent of the Saudi work force. They cannot travel abroad, be admitted into a hospital, examined by a doctor or leave the house without permission or company of an immediate male relative.
Women also face discrimination in the Saudi legal system because of the country's strict interpretation of Shariah law.
Recently, seven men abducted a teenage woman with an unrelated man from a mall in Saudi Arabia and raped her. In October, the seven men were sentenced to two to nine years in prison, but the woman was also convicted of breaking the law by not having a male guardian with her and for being alone with an unrelated man. She was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes.
Where is the justice in that? A victim of gang rape, she must face legal punishment?
Nowhere in Islamic jurisprudence will you find such a rule. This is not Islam. The Prophet Muhammad came to give more rights to women; not to take away their rights. This case drew international outrage, resulting in the woman's pardon by Saudi Arabia's king.
It is so sad to see the definition of justice so skewed in Saudi Arabia. I openly declare that these enemies of justice are not following any Islamic principles related to justice. Islam says that everyone is answerable for their actions to God only. The right to impose religiousness has not been granted to anyone, especially to those who do not even understand the religion.
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