Thursday, September 09, 2004

Are Muslim women in Canada afraid of their own religion's law being enforced?

I'm very curious about how this situation will be resolved. Canada has long tried to appeal to the sensibilities of it's immigrant population, and Canada's government is no doubt more immigrant friendly than that of the United States. Apparently, religious figures (not figurines, you wacky idolaters) are being allowed to help settle non-criminal legal disputes between members of a common religious group, using that group's laws, guidelines, etc. as the basis for those settlements. Christians, Jews, and members of Canada's "native" minority have been using this arbitration system for some time. Some Canadian adherents to Islam, particularly the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, are less than excited about this, afraid that they will be pressured by their religious community into accepting the decisions of imams that stem from an interpretation of sharia (Muslim religious law) that differs from their own personal religious approach.

Here's a tenditious audio story from NPR.

Is this, more or less, nothing more than the rise of feminism within Canada's Muslim community? For about 18 months, we lived in Saudi Arabia, a country that uses it's own interpretation of sharia as the basis for all legal matters, and I can certainly see where conflict may arise in Canada, as you will have Muslims from some very different sharia traditions incorporating their own views into Canadian civil law. I am looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

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