European tolerance for multi-culturalism coming to an end?

[Alien]

@Lochdale

As for political asylum, I’d have to ask how many are too many? That is, there are millions upon millions who would like to be somewhere else. Should a tiny country like Denmark or even Norway be expected to take them all?

Good question. I honestly don’t know. I do know we cannot talk of freedom and not walk the walk. Neither can I accept the European far right argument that immigrants and Europe don’t mix. America is built on immigration and has turned out the most successful nation in history. Maybe Europe is the one it is something wrong with.

On a sidenote I dug up a previous post of mine about work force participation ratios for immigrants/natives in Denmark and Germany, 38% versus 76%, and 49% versus 65%, respectively, but I see my cite is now gone.

btw, I now see I missed your reply to Frankenstein on the previous page, things are clearer now.

@LonesomePolecat

Well, since the dawn of explosives, anyway.

[Lochdale]

There are limits to everything and the movement of human capital is no exception to this rule.

We should not personalize the issue. That is, many immigrants do assimilate well and are productive members of the host country.

However, we should not ignore the profound social and political issues raised by new immigrants.

For example, according to this article 40% of all crimianl detainess in Belgium are immigrants:

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=24&story_id=28044

[Alien]

@Lochdale

There are limits to everything and the movement of human capital is no exception to this rule.

We should not personalize the issue. That is, many immigrants do assimilate well and are productive members of the host country.

However, we should not ignore the profound social and political issues raised by new immigrants.

For example, according to this article 40% of all crimianl detainess in Belgium are immigrants:

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=24&story_id=28044

I agree completely, and I also agree there’s currently a crime problem with young immigrants (though Yugoslavians and Algerians are the mafia). Not making excuses, but that’s the way it goes when minorities get isolated and can’t get jobs. In my experience, having lived among and worked with immigrants, those who are socializing with Europeans don’t have any problems adopting to life in Europe. I’ve also met immigrants who obviously weren’t interacting with our society, and that’s a whole different kind of people.

Part of the problem with the European debate is the semi-racist far-right who has been at the forefronts, cleverly crafting their arguments. The background and real motives of these groups has made it hard for mainstream politicians to “come in second” for tougher measures without losing credibility.

[Sam_Stone]

@Tamerlane

As it happens I personally agree with you on the preference for secular law. But agree more with Dead Badger ( I think ) that voluntary submission to religious family law which does not violate the secular law of the land is an acceptable compromise for the devout.

• Tamerlane

I’d agree with you, except that I’m not convinced that the participation of women is all that voluntary, considering that many live under the chilling effect of institutional subservience and threats of violence. In a culture that tolerates wife beating and ‘honor killings’, and in which women who leave the faith are sometimes killed for apostasy, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe that when a woman says she’ll agree to Sharia arbitration, she’s merely parroting the demands of her husband.

Some may not be. Maybe even a large majority. The problem is sorting them out from the victims in the minority. And it’s those minority victims the law is supposed to protect.

[Tamerlane]

@Sam Stone

I’d agree with you, except that I’m not convinced that the participation of women is all that voluntary, considering that many live under the chilling effect of institutional subservience and threats of violence. In a culture that tolerates wife beating and ‘honor killings’, and in which women who leave the faith are sometimes killed for apostasy, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe that when a woman says she’ll agree to Sharia arbitration, she’s merely parroting the demands of her husband.

Some may not be. Maybe even a large majority. The problem is sorting them out from the victims in the minority. And it’s those minority victims the law is supposed to protect.

It’s a fair point, Sam, which is why I would emphasize any religious law having to not directly contradict the secular law of the land. Hopefully that can keep truly egregious abuse at bay, while still allowing that religious flexibility. Undoubtedly some sort of oversite would be needed.

Or perhaps it’s an unworkable idea. But I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand as such.

But let me just one more time make the minor corrective of noting that Islam is not a culture. It’s a religion and subsumes hundreds of cultures ( and damn near as many sects and subsects ), which by definition don’t always share the same views on even religious dicta ;).

• Tamerlane

[Dead_Badger]

@Tamerlane

But agree more with Dead Badger ( I think ) that voluntary submission to religious family law which does not violate the secular law of the land is an acceptable compromise for the devout.

I haven’t really decided where I stand on this, actually. My instinct is to oppose it, partly for reasons similar to Sam Stone’s, and partly because I’m not convinced I like the idea of a two-stream justice system at any level. I think problems of forum shopping and discrimination would arise (would only Muslims be allowed access to Sharia civil resolutions?), and I dislike the precedent of state endorsement of religious strictures. Further, for both parties to willingly consent to go to such a court, one would assume that neither would incur a disadvantage thereby (or else they would choose to go to a normal court). In this case, what is gained by the new courts, save complication? OTOH at present there’s nothing stopping private citizens from resolving disputes between themselves according to Sharia principles; it just wouldn’t be legally binding. Whether this is an argument for or against giving Sharia courts official approval depends on your point of view, really.

Either way, I was really just attempting to illustrate to tagos that there are considerably less scary interpretations of “implementing Sharia” than the absolutist view he was portraying. Thanks for your more in-depth information.

[Kimstu]

@Tamerlane

But let me just one more time make the minor corrective of noting that Islam is not a culture. It’s a religion and subsumes hundreds of cultures ( and damn near as many sects and subsects ), which by definition don’t always share the same views on even religious dicta .

However, that perspective is not accepted by Islamic fundamentalists such as tagos.

Calm down, people—I know that tagos is not a Muslim, and that he’s a secularist who in no way supports or condones Islamist oppression or violence. I’ve got nothing against tagos’s ethics, and I’m not trying to taunt him with digs of the “your friend Osama” variety. But it is nonetheless perfectly accurate to describe his views on Islam as “Islamic fundamentalist”.

These views on Islam—namely, that it is intrinsically, essentially militant and patriarchal, fundamentally incompatible with secular tolerance, and intrinsically impossible to interpret in any other way—are the same views that the radical-fundamentalist Muslim imams hold. The only difference is that the imams think these characteristics are good things, while tagos thinks they’re bad ones.

My objections to Islamic fundamentalism are that (1) it short-changes all the alternative perspectives and theological interpretations that Tamerlane and Dead Badger mention, and (2) it lets the radical-fundamentalist imams be the ones to decide what the “true nature” of Islam is.

I think we’d do a better service to Islam and to the rest of the world by espousing and promoting “Islamic liberalism”: namely, the opposing perspective which holds that the Qur’an and hadith are capable of differing interpretations, and that it’s theologically appropriate for modern Muslims to interpret them in a tolerant, egalitarian way. An example of such Islamic-liberal interpretations is the writings of the Pakistani-American Muslim feminist Asma Barlas.

Personally, although I hold that it’s necessary to be respectful of the historical context and literal meanings of a scriptural text when analyzing it historically, I don’t see any need to privilege them over other considerations when interpreting it morally. I think all religious scriptures contain lots of statements of the “Never shave your duck” variety: statements that are pretty much useless in their literal sense outside of the specific historical-cultural context in which they were written, and need to be interpreted in other ways in order to be meaningful today.

I don’t care if modern liberal interpretations make fundamentalists mad or provoke accusations of heresy. I don’t see why the fundamentalists should be the ones who get to decide what the “true nature” of any religion is. I don’t have any problem with maintaining, with the noted ninth-century jurist Abu Farasha Muhammad as-Salawi*, that the true meaning of a Qur’anic sura that says “ye shall slay unbelievers wherever you find them” is really “ye shall point at butterflies and go: oooooh pretty”. And I hold that the Butterflyist School is just as legitimate a version of Islam as any militant brutal fundamentalist Wahhabist sect, although alas nowhere near as influential.

*Okay, there isn’t really any ninth-century jurist by this name and there isn’t any Butterflyist School, I made them up (Abu Farasha means more or less “the butterfly guy”).

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

BTW–

re: Belgium & 40% of criminal detainees/immigrants.

The US has a similar experience with immigrants & crime.
It isn’t all prejudice.

Witness the Mafia, for the very best known example. And yes, Europe has a Mafia, too, I know. So what?

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Dead Badger

The respondents indicated that in civil disputes, in areas where it did not conflict with existing UK law, they would like Sharia resolutions to be made available to consenting parties. A rather less shocking opinion

There is no reason to assume that Sharia law for civil disputes is not available to “consenting” parties anywhere in the free world. A Muslim man and woman can choose to have their divorce settled by their local religious organization and ignore the civil legal infrastructure which is available to everyone.

Of course it takes two to tango and if one of the parties doesn’t like the Sharia outcome they can take their case to the law of the land . That is the problem for Sharia lovers.

Then of course that party isn’t “consenting” .

[Dead_Badger]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

Witness the Mafia, for the very best known example. And yes, Europe has a Mafia, too, I know. So what?

And yet, no-one in America now whinges about the problem of Italian-American integration, or how their “culture” is intrinsically incompatible with the American way of life. One wonders what lesson we might draw from this.

@The Flying Dutchman

There is no reason to assume that Sharia law for civil disputes is not available to “consenting” parties anywhere in the free world. A Muslim man and woman can choose to have their divorce settled by their local religious organization and ignore the civil legal infrastructure which is available to everyone.

A point I myself made just three posts before yours. You’ll notice that I didn’t say that having officially sanctioned Sharia civil dispute resolution was a great idea, or even a good one. I merely mentioned that it was an idea which does not equate to all-out hand-chopping and general stoning people at the drop of a burqa.

[Evil_Captor]

My concern about Muslim immigration in Europe is this: I have read that the proper mode of conduct for Muslims according to the Koran, is to be benign and tolerant when living among non-Muslims, to obey their laws, etc. But when Muslims are in the ascendancy in a society, you are supposed to enforce Muslim laws and force others to accept the Prophet. In the most extreme cases, kill them.

This isn’t intentional duplicity. It’s the proper code of conduct. The Koran (implicitly) acknowledges that it does no good to try to force other people to accept Islamic law when you have no power to do so, so it does not require them to do so. But as soon as you CAN do so, you SHOULD do so, because Islam is a GOOD thing, and forcing others to live under Islamic law will be good for THEM as well as you.

So what will happen when Muslims constitute the majority or at least a sizable minority in some European countries – GOOD things – if you’re a devout Muslim.

Of course, not all Muslims are devout and those who assimilate well into their culture are not likely to want to stone women to death, etc. The question is, will Muslims assimilate? Will they feel any NEED to if they are isolated in their own communitiies? If they don’t, and if the numbers keep going the way they are presently going, I fear a lot of European nations will become Sharia-friendly, eventually.

[Evil_Captor]

@Dead Badger

And yet, no-one in America now whinges about the problem of Italian-American integration, or how their “culture” is intrinsically incompatible with the American way of life. One wonders what lesson we might draw from this.

It could be argued that a certain subset of Italian-Americans have not assimilated at ALL well into American culture. Or that they assimilated in an entirely unwholesome way.

[Tamerlane]

@Dead Badger

I haven’t really decided where I stand on this, actually.

Fair enough :).

On at least some levels it seems like a fairly trivial compromise, but I admit I have my qualms. Whether or not it is actually practical being one of them, Sam’s concerns about compulsion being another. It’s interesting you mention “forum shopping” though ( which isn’t among the potential issues that bothers me, really ) - such used to occur regularly in Ottoman courts apparently ( at least in records from 18th century Aleppo ), for instance such that rabbis made explicit requests that their flock stick to rabbinical courts where possible, even if the Shari’a courts offered better outcomes to their disputes.

@Evil Captor

My concern about Muslim immigration in Europe is this: I have read that the proper mode of conduct for Muslims according to the Koran, is to be benign and tolerant when living among non-Muslims, to obey their laws, etc. But when Muslims are in the ascendancy in a society, you are supposed to enforce Muslim laws and force others to accept the Prophet. In the most extreme cases, kill them.

Not accurate. Islam’s ‘no compulsion in religion’ clause has not infrequently been violated by Muslim states over the years, but it is still the rule rather than the exception. And you can find plenty of overwhelmingly Muslim states today that have either no or limited implementation of Shari’a - no one gets stoned to death by legal sanction in Indonesia or for that matter most Muslim countries. The idea that Islam must spread until it covers the world ( the dar al-harb/dar al-Islam idea and related concepts ) is a bit of itjihad itself, dating from the heady days of imperial conquest when it seemed highly likely it would.

Kimstu - Well said.

• Tamerlane

[Lochdale]

@Dead Badger

And yet, no-one in America now whinges about the problem of Italian-American integration, or how their “culture” is intrinsically incompatible with the American way of life. One wonders what lesson we might draw from this.
.

Actually they did. The numbers of Italians emmigrating to the US was drastically cut by the Immigration Act of 1924. So let’s see what lessons we can glean from this. Large immigrant group, numbers are significantly reduced. Generational assimilation as they group is no longer being replenished by new immigrants = integration.

I think we can learn a very valuable lessson from this.

In addition, the difference is in sheer numbers. The volume of Italian immigrants is nothing like the number of Mexican immigrants entering the US. In addition, they emmigrated to a country that was vast and desperate for bodies. Many Muslims are immigrating to established European countries with established cultures.

[Alien]

@Evil Captor

So what will happen when Muslims constitute the majority or at least a sizable minority in some European countries – GOOD things – if you’re a devout Muslim.

The Muslim population of Central and Western Europe today is only 3.1%. A larger Muslim population has been living in Eastern Europe since historical times.

Islam by country

The number of new arrivals is generally low these post 9/11 days, actual figures varies by country. My homecountry Norway has had an annual surplus of migrants of 0.25% of the population the last few decades. This number includes Americans, Swedes, Koreans and a bunch of other nationalities, in addition to people from Muslim cultures. Such a immigrant-friendly country as the Netherlands had an annual surplus of 0.31% migrants in 2001 (the top year), but unlike Norway they saw a higher number of non-western immigrants and additionally they witness more natives moving out than coming back home (that particular year non-western migrants made up almost all the surplus (0.28%)). Since then far fewer immigrants have entered the Netherlands, and even fewer of them are non-Westerners.
http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/mens-maatschappij/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2002/2002-0985-wm.htm

Demography of the Netherlands

@Evil Captor

The question is, will Muslims assimilate? Will they feel any NEED to if they are isolated in their own communitiies? If they don’t, and if the numbers keep going the way they are presently going, I fear a lot of European nations will become Sharia-friendly, eventually

Yes, please do read the numbers. If the numbers keep going the way they are presently going, Western European nations will not become Sharia-friendly in my lifetime, my grandchildren’s lifetime, or even their grandchildren’s lifetime. That’s the truth to it.

[Lochdale]

Thank you for the stats Alien. Immigrants can assimilate but it takes time and it requires effort, outreach and an assurance that there won’t be a steady supply of immigrants following them into the country.

[tagos]

@Kimstu

However, that perspective is not accepted by Islamic fundamentalists such as tagos.

Calm down, people—I know that tagos is not a Muslim, and that he’s a secularist who in no way supports or condones Islamist oppression or violence. I’ve got nothing against tagos’s ethics, and I’m not trying to taunt him with digs of the “your friend Osama” variety. But it is nonetheless perfectly accurate to describe his views on Islam as “Islamic fundamentalist”.

These views on Islam—namely, that it is intrinsically, essentially militant and patriarchal, fundamentally incompatible with secular tolerance, and intrinsically impossible to interpret in any other way—are the same views that the radical-fundamentalist Muslim imams hold. The only difference is that the imams think these characteristics are good things, while tagos thinks they’re bad ones.

My objections to Islamic fundamentalism are that (1) it short-changes all the alternative perspectives and theological interpretations that Tamerlane and Dead Badger mention, and (2) it lets the radical-fundamentalist imams be the ones to decide what the “true nature” of Islam is.

I think we’d do a better service to Islam and to the rest of the world by espousing and promoting “Islamic liberalism”: namely, the opposing perspective which holds that the Qur’an and hadith are capable of differing interpretations, and that it’s theologically appropriate for modern Muslims to interpret them in a tolerant, egalitarian way. An example of such Islamic-liberal interpretations is the writings of the Pakistani-American Muslim feminist Asma Barlas.

Personally, although I hold that it’s necessary to be respectful of the historical context and literal meanings of a scriptural text when analyzing it historically, I don’t see any need to privilege them over other considerations when interpreting it morally. I think all religious scriptures contain lots of statements of the “Never shave your duck” variety: statements that are pretty much useless in their literal sense outside of the specific historical-cultural context in which they were written, and need to be interpreted in other ways in order to be meaningful today.

I don’t care if modern liberal interpretations make fundamentalists mad or provoke accusations of heresy. I don’t see why the fundamentalists should be the ones who get to decide what the “true nature” of any religion is. I don’t have any problem with maintaining, with the noted ninth-century jurist Abu Farasha Muhammad as-Salawi*, that the true meaning of a Qur’anic sura that says “ye shall slay unbelievers wherever you find them” is really “ye shall point at butterflies and go: oooooh pretty”. And I hold that the Butterflyist School is just as legitimate a version of Islam as any militant brutal fundamentalist Wahhabist sect, although alas nowhere near as influential.

*Okay, there isn’t really any ninth-century jurist by this name and there isn’t any Butterflyist School, I made them up (Abu Farasha means more or less “the butterfly guy”).

I take your points. I do currently believe, from my recent readings, that Islam is inherently fundamentalist, in that there is no possibility of any kind of ‘Enlightenment’ in any reasonable time frame. And the emergence of a liberal tolerant Islam would have to do great violence to the basic texts of Islam.

Tolerant Islam is essentially a liberal secular fantasy with no roots, intellectual or political, in the real world.

Sure, we can all come up with tiny little sects with their own little web sites, but they are so inconsequential as to be totally irrelevant. They have no power, no influence and no basis in Islam for their interpretations.

You only have to read the Koran to see it is fundamentally incompatible with secular liberalism. There is no way to finesse away the subjugation of women. The only wriggle room is the nature of their covering and the thickness of the rod men can beat them with in particular circumstances.

These things cannot be credibly ‘reinterpreted’. The ‘true’ Koran is only the original Arabic. You cannot retranslate it to blur the dark ages nonsense. Doing that just leads to playing ‘fantasy Islam’.

It’s no use us pretending there is a viable alternative about to sweep the world and make everything better. The only two options are - a flavour of ‘fundamentalist’ (true) Islam or the hope that Muslims stop taking their religion so seriously. As the latter isn’t going to happen any time soon then we should deal with the illiberal one we have.

The bottom line is that Muslim violence at the street level of Muslim countries, Muslim violence in the neverending stream of ‘edicts’ from fundamentalist Imans and Muslim violence in the form of a large pool of active sympathisers and active terrorists in European countries ready to act on sny perceived ‘slight’ is already compromising liberal values and placing limits on my liberty and freedom of expression.

[tagos]

@Tamerlane

Not accurate. Islam’s ‘no compulsion in religion’ clause has not infrequently been violated by Muslim states over the years, but it is still the rule rather than the exception. And you can find plenty of overwhelmingly Muslim states today that have either no or limited implementation of Shari’a - no one gets stoned to death by legal sanction in Indonesia or for that matter most Muslim countries. The idea that Islam must spread until it covers the world ( the dar al-harb/dar al-Islam idea and related concepts ) is a bit of itjihad itself, dating from the heady days of imperial conquest when it seemed highly likely it would.

Kimstu - Well said.

• Tamerlane

Indonesia has imposed saria law on Aceh and ‘creeping’ imposition of Sharia at the local and provincial levels. Malaysia too. It doesn’t matter if there are no stonings. Even ‘moderate’ Islam imposes restrictions on women’s role in society as it fights constant battles against fundamentalist interpretations.

Asia Times

MARLUDDIN JALIL, a Sharia judge who has ordered the punishment of women for not wearing headscarves, was uncompromising: “The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh.”

Thundering into a microphone at a gathering of wives, he made clear where he felt the fault lay: “The Holy Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good.”

A year after the disaster which many see as a divine punishment, emboldened Islamic hardliners are doing their best to eradicate sin — and women are their prime targets.

Moderate Islam challenged

In many ways, Indonesia proves that Islam and democracy can work together, a combination that has failed in other parts of the Islamic world.

But a battle is being waged here over whether the country will stay on the path of moderate Islam or whether a new breed of Islamic fundamentalists will win over the countryside. The country continues to struggle with a poor economy, corruption and political instability. For many, Islam–and Islamic law–have become the answer.

“People are hoping for a savior from their crisis,” said Jamhari Makruf, executive director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Society in Jakarta. “And what is normally the savior? Religion, of course.”

But extremist Islamic groups have found new freedom in democracy as well.

Fundamentalists once exiled from the country have returned. Extremist groups have recruited new members, fought a jihad, or holy war, on one of the country’s islands, and staged three major terrorist attacks against Western targets, including one in October 2002 at two nightclubs on the island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Fundamentalists also have called for Shariah, or Islamic law, a set of rules dictating everything from conservative dress to strict criminal punishments.

At least seven rural areas have elected leaders who have established some mild form of Shariah over the past three years. That is seen as a way to fight the endemic corruption that has drained Indonesia’s economy. To reduce prostitution, one town has set an evening curfew for women. Other regions are contemplating criminal punishments, such as cutting off the hands of thieves or stoning adulterers.

Sharia putting its best foot forward

The usual criticisms of Sharia - that it is so cruel as regards execution, flogging and cutting off hands, totally ignore all the extenuating circumstances that would lead to these penalties not being applied - they are known as hadd penalties (pl. hudud), the hadd being the extreme limit of the penalty. Thus, if a person was sentenced to having a hand cut off, he or she should not be sent to prison and/or be fined as well. People who regard these practices as cruel will never be persuaded otherwise, so Muslims usually leave that aside.

The form of execution is not specified in Islam - i.e. it is not usually a stoning. Beheading used to be regarded as the quickest and most merciful way (as in Roman law, and the French guillotine); these days other methods may find approval. There are apparently far less executions in most Muslim countries than in the USA, for example. The penalty for adultery is open to debate. Most scholars will insist that the penalty as laid down in the Qur’an was 100 lashes, and there were various rules for regulating how lashes were to be given too.

I’m with this guy

Muslims who wish to live under a system of sharia law should leave Britain, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality suggested yesterday.

<snip>

He rejected the idea that British Muslims should be allowed to live under sharia law in their communities. “I don’t think that’s conceivable,” he said. “We have one set of laws … and that’s the end of the story. If you want to have laws decided in another way, you have to live somewhere else.”

There simply cannot be any co-existence between legal codes derived from God and secular systems. Concede on this and you have the thin end of the wedge inserted into society’s cracks.

[Dead_Badger]

@tagos

It doesn’t matter if there are no stonings.

Er, yes it does. If you’re claiming that Sharia is invariably total and uncompromisable, and someone shows you that there are very different implementations of it and that there certainly are practical compromises being made, then that means you comprehensively wrong. Your willingness to handwave away rather huge details like stonings is quite ironic, given that you are attempting to berate Islam at large for failures of nuance.

Even ‘moderate’ Islam imposes restrictions on women’s role in society as it fights constant battles against fundamentalist interpretations.

I thought you said that there was no room for differing interpretations of Sharia, and that moderation in Islam was impossible. Yet here you seem to be acknowledging both, and retreating to the rather less objective position that you dislike all shades of Sharia equally, and that they are thus equivalent. Is this the case?

[tagos]

@Dead Badger

Er, yes it does. If you’re claiming that Sharia is invariably total and uncompromisable, and someone shows you that there are very different implementations of it and that there certainly are practical compromises being made, then that means you comprehensively wrong. Your willingness to handwave away rather huge details like stonings is quite ironic, given that you are attempting to berate Islam at large for failures of nuance.

I thought you said that there was no room for differing interpretations of Sharia, and that moderation in Islam was impossible. Yet here you seem to be acknowledging both, and retreating to the rather less objective position that you dislike all shades of Sharia equally, and that they are thus equivalent. Is this the case?

You haven’t shown me any acceptable form of sharia. Show me a form of Sharia Law based on an accepted interpretation of Islam that intrinsically rejects, on a theological basis, stonings, executions and the oppression of women. Show me an Islamic society with a humanistic sharia. As Evil Captor has correctly pointed out - Islam demands one thing when not in a position of power, another when powerful.

I’ve demonstrated that Indonesia has unacceptable sharia. I can do the same for malaysia. Even Turkey is finding it hard to keep the secular line. This is the thin end of the wedge in action.

I do not acknowledge a non-fundie Islam exists. All I see are theologically weak and inconsequential fantasies by those pretending Islam can be reinterpreted in any way consonant with womens rights etc etc. None of which have any influence.
It is not possible, from my readings, to have an Islamic society that is liberal. True Islam is a violent creed in word and deed and OBL’s interpretation is much closer to the message and life of mohammed than those ineffectual voices claiming that it is somehow a faith that can support a liberal society without undergoing a not-on-the-horizon reinterpretation of basic tenets.
Why Sharia Law must be opposed

Sharia law is the instrument by which Political Islam seeks to control the Muslim world. Whilst the Sharia may have been inspired by the Holy Quran, it has developed and evolved through time and through the efforts of men. The Sharia should be open to analysis, research and criticism like any other system of law, practice and belief. Its divine inspiration should no more shield it from criticism than Christianity should have been spared criticism for burning heretics or massacring unbelievers. The more pernicious interpretations of the Sharia today fall far short of the minimum standards of justice widely demanded by the international community and by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The Sharia should be opposed for its imposition of theocracy over democracy, its abuse of human rights, its institutionalized discrimination, its denial of human dignity and individual autonomy, its punishment of alternative lifestyle choices, and for the severity of its punishments.

In the west, in countries that have a sizable Muslim population, there have been calls for the Sharia to be adopted for the Muslim community. These calls should be vigorously opposed; the Sharia conflicts with many basic human values, such as equality before the law, that punishments should be commensurate with the crime, and that the law must be based on the will of the people.

Good article despite the source.

Sharia Law is bad
sharia article

The Koran and the Tradition are not, as it is often said, the basis of Islamic legal speculation, but only its sources. The real foundation is to be sought in the attitude of mind which determined the methods of utilizing these sources. The first question, then, is not ‘What is laid down in the Koran and the Hadith?’, but ‘Why are the Koran and the Hadith accepted as sources of law?’, and the second is ‘How are their prescriptions to be understood and applied?’

To answer the first question by saying that Koran and the Hadith are accepted as infallible sources because they are the foundations and title-deeds of the religion of Islam is to argue in a circle. The ultimate reason is metaphysical and a priori. It is a conviction of the imperfection of human reason and its inability to apprehend by its sole powers the real nature of the Good or indeed any reality whatsoever. Absolute good and evil can therefore be known to men only through a divine revelation mediated through Prophets. By Divine Providence there has been a succession of such Prophets ever since, by the creation of Adam (who was the first of them), mankind has existed on this earth. The revelations accorded to these Prophets were all identical in principle, but formed a gradually developing series adapted to the stages of man’s development. Each in turn expanded, modified, and abrogated the preceding revelations. The Koran is the final revelation and therefore contains the final and most perfect solutions for all questions of belief and conduct.

When, therefore, a consensus of opinions had been attained by the scholars of the second and third centuries on any given point, the promulgation of new ideas on the exposition of the relevant texts of the Koran and Hadith was as good as forbidden. Their decisions were irrevocable. The right of individual interpretation (ijtihad) was in theory (and very largely in practice also) confined to the points on which no general agreement had yet been reached. As these were narrowed down from generation to generation, the scholars of later centuries were limited to commenting and explaining the treatises in which those decisions were recorded. The great majority of Muslim doctors held that the ‘gate of Ijtihad’ was shut once and for all, and that no scholar, however eminent, could henceforth qualify as a mujtahid, an authoritative interpreter of the law; although some few later theologians did from time to time claim for themselves the right of ijtihad.

In spite of their formal differences and divergences in details, all three schools grew into substantial agreement on the more important matters. All of them in practice recoginzed the same sources: Koran, Sunna, Ijma’, and some form of analogical reasoning; and all recognized each other’s systems as equally orthodox. Thus they are not to distinguished as different ‘sects’ of Sunni Islam, but merely as distinct schools, or in the Arabic expression ‘ways’ (madhahib, sing. madhhab). Any scholar or ordinary Believer might belong to any one, but in the long run they tended to divide the Islamic world between them. At the present day the Hanafi school predominates in Western Asia (except Arabia), Lower Egypt, and Pakistan; the Shafi’i in Indonesia; and the Maliki in North and West Africa and Upper Egypt.

Besides these three there were several other schools. The Syrian school of al-Awza’i (d. 774) disappeared in favour of Malikism at a very early date. During the third century a strong traditionalist reaction against the speculative ‘innovations’ of the previous schools and the Mu’tazilite dialectic was led by two Baghdad doctors, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) and Da’ud al-Zahiri (d. 883). The Zahiri school seems never to have gained a wide following, though it counted some outstanding jurists in later centuries, but the Hanbali school had a strong following in Iraq and Syria until the Ottoman conquest. In the eighteenth century it was revived (under the name of Wahhabi) in Central Arabia, and is now the dominant school in most of Central and Northern Arabia. Although recognized by the other schools as a fourth orthodox madhhab, its attitude towards them has been generally less tolerant.

Since the formal legal doctrines and definitions of these schools remained substantially unchanged through all the later centuries, there is little to be gained by tracing down and discussing their formidable output of juristic works. But in view of the very widely held view that Islamic Law (or Koranic Law, as it is often called) has remained in a petrified state ever since the ‘gate of Ijtihad’ was closed in the third century, it is of considerable interest to note some of the later developments.

Since the formulation of the Religious Law was totally independent of the secular authority, there could be no question of interference by Caliphs or Sultans with its rules and decisions. The secular authorities were bound to recognize it and to provide for its due administration by the appointment of judges (qadis) in all parts of their territories. But although there is little that can be called legislation by the State until the rise of the Ottoman Empire, yet from an early date the secular authorities intervened to a certain extent in judicial administration by holding courts ‘for the redress of wrongs’ (mazalim). In these a somewhat arbitrarily modified form of the religious law was applied, with or without the collaboration of the official qadis.

In the religious courts, and sometimes in mazalim courts as well, it was a common procedure to submit a summary of any important case to a qualified jurist for his opinion. Such a consultant was called a mufti, and his reply was embodied in a fatwa or statement of the legal issues. As a rule the muftis maintained their independence of the secular administration, but in the Ottoman Empire they were graded in the official hierarchy, ranking below the qadis, and the Chief Mufti of Constantinople, who was entitled Shaikh al-Islam, was the highest religious authority in the Empire.

The collections of fatwas by eminent jurists are thus a much more important source for the study of legal usage and development than the stereotyped text-books of the madhahib. In them there is reflected the long struggle which went on for centuries (and still continues) between the Religious Law and local customary law in many Islamic countries, and the steady pressure of the religious leaders to assimilate local usages ('adat) to the standards of Islamic law.

In spite of these derogations from its authority, the Shari’a always remained in force as an ideal and a final court of appeal, and by its unity and comprehensiveness it formed the main unifying force in Islamic culture. Its very lack of flexibility contributed to this result by preventing divergences and disintegration into purely local systems. It permeated almost every side of social life and every branch of Islamic literature, and it is no exaggeration to see in it, in the words of one of the most penetrating of modern students of the subject, ‘the epitome of the true Islamic spirit, the most decisive expression of Islamic thought, the essential kernel of Islam’.4

There are no ‘liberal’ Muslim societies based on some fluffy Sharia. There are only Muslim societies who try and impose secular law by varying degrees of force (Turkey and Pakistan), those trying to compromise but showing increasing unpleasant sharia influence (Malaysia and Indonesia) and the truly awful like Saudi and Nigeria.

A legal system based on the infallible Word of God should be anathema to anyone who values freedom.

I’d say the same about any attempt to build a legal system based on the Old Testament but fundamentalist Christians are not a threat to my liberty. Islam is, on a daily basis in that it practically dictates I cannot be seen in some places with a particular friend without my life being at risk and as a writer I cannot write certain things without being in danger.

I’m not going to change your opinion I know. I was just the same before I started investigating the issue. All very liberal and PC. I was just fooling myself.