20 years ago the West would have thought poorly of Islamic Finance and today they realise its value. On the same breath, today the west sees Shariah law as barbaric and backward – I wonder what they’ll think of it 20 years from now?

What Does Islam Teach About Justice?
Neither love nor hatred can be allowed to compromise justice.

By Khalid Baig

There is one word that captures the essence of all Islamic laws and all Islamic teachings; one word that describes the overriding value that permeates all Islamic values. Justice. The Qur’an says: “We sent aforetime our messengers with clear Signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance, that men may stand forth in Justice.” [Al-Hadeed 57:25]

The sole purpose of sending the prophets was to establish Justice in the world and end injustice. Broadly speaking, doing justice means giving everyone his due. But this simple statement camouflages all the complexities of life in their myriad and ever-changing relations; all the temptations; all the apprehensions and concerns; all the conflicts and dilemmas. To guide the people, Allah sent down the prophets with clear signs, the Book, and the Balance. The Book contains the revelations that spell out what’s fair and unfair or right and wrong. The Balance refers to our ability to measure and calculate so we can follow the path shown by the Book and explained by the Prophets.

Together these sources taught us what are the rights of Allah, of other people, and of our own persons on us and how to balance them. A life lived in obedience to Allah, then, is a continuous balancing act, both individually and collectively.

Under normal circumstances many people can be just. But Islam commands its followers to be just even in the face of strong conflicting emotions. In dealing with other human beings, two major impediments to justice are love and hatred. See how the Qur’an teaches us to overcome the first impediment when we are dealing with our closest relatives or even ourselves. “O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” [An-Nisa 4:35]

Here is the resolution from the Qur’an of the perennial conflict between self-interest and justice. Be just, even if it is against your narrowly defined self-interest or of those very close to you. Ignorant people think they are protecting their self-interest by being unjust to others. Their decision to be just or unjust may be based on a cold calculation of self-interest. But real faith in Allah elevates one beyond that narrow-mindedness. These verses remind us that the real protector of interests of all people is also Allah and He will protect us when we follow His command to be just. The justice demanded by Islam permits no favoritism.

The other equally potent impediment is hatred. Here again Qur’an commands: “O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to Piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” [Al-Maidah 5:8]

In other words you cannot do injustice even when you are dealing with the enemy. The natural, uneducated, and uncivilized tendency is to treat the enemy as less than a human being; one who has no rights and deserves no justice or fairness. It was as true in the pre-Islamic tribal jahilya (based on ignorance) society as it is today. See how Islam directly curbs it. It is a command to the believers, with a reminder that Allah is watching you, that enmity of others cannot be used as an excuse for committing injustices against them.

Justice does require retribution and Islam does call for, “an eye for an eye.” But it does not mean an innocent eye for an innocent eye; it means the eye of the perpetrator for the eye of the victim. It is amazing how those who call the latter as barbaric, actually rally for the former when a real crisis develops.

Fourteen hundred years ago these commands created a society where rich and poor, friend and foe, Muslim and non-Muslim, the ruler and the ruled, were all treated equally and all of them could count on receiving justice. The qazis (judges) were independent and no one, including the khalifah was above the law. If a dispute arose between the Khalifah and an ordinary person, both had to appear in court and provide their evidence. Islamic history is full of stories of this justice that filled the earth wherever Muslims ruled in their golden era.

Even during their period of decline, we find sporadic incidents that are just unparalleled. One example from recent history may suffice here. During the British Rule in India, once a dispute arose between Hindus and Muslims over a piece of land. Hindus claimed it belonged to a temple while Muslims claimed it to be mosque. Emotions were high on both sides and the possibility of a riot was real. The English judge could not find any means of ascertaining the truth. It was one group’s words against the other’s. Finally the Judge asked both groups if they could trust the testimony of any person. They could. It was a particular Muslim imam (religious leader) who was known for his piety. The person was requested to come to the court as a witness in a very charged atmosphere, with the entire community urging him to help them win the case through his testimony. His testimony was brief. “The Hindus are right,” he said. “The Muslim case is baseless.” He had not betrayed the community. He had once more affirmed its unflinching commitment to truth and justice above all else.

That is the justice the world needs today.

“Allah doth command you to render back your Trusts to those to whom they are due; and when ye judge between man and man, that ye judge with justice: verily how excellent is the teaching which He gives you! For Allah is He Who hears and sees all things.” [An-Nisa 4:58]

The Mark of a Jurist in Johannesburg
Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd August 2008
8.30AM Sharp – 7:00PM both days
Marie Curie  Lecture Theatre, University of Witwatersrand,
Medical School Campus, Johannesburg, Gauteng

“Nothing that I have ever studied about Islam, and I really mean nothing… has ever changed my thinking and allowed me to mature in my thoughts about this deen and about what Allah wants from us from our life in the 21st Century, like the knowledge of the rules of Fiqh. A person who learns it – grows wiser by the day and is rewarded with amazing insight into this religion. I think it is appropriate then, that we start of AlKauthar in Johannesburg South Africa with the most interesting  aspect of knowledge.”       [Tawfique Chowdhury]

The essence of Fiqh is based around certain golden rules which if learnt, summarize to the student – fiqh in its vastness. Through these rules, a person increases in his/her wisdom, achieves scholarly insight, affirms the principles, becomes aware of the specifics and more importantly – these rules clarify to him the goals and purposes of the Shariah.

Click here for more & to Enroll

From Khalid Baig:

As the entire world now knew, a few years ago Israel engaged in plain massacre of Lebanese civilians in broad daylight. Its soldiers were nothing more than common criminals killing innocent men, women, and little children in an ambulance here, in the U.N. compound over there, in homes and villages every where. Killing of civilians for political purposes is –by definition– terrorism. So what Israel recently did, as it has been doing for the past half century, is pure state sponsored terrorism.

We  know that the United States prides itself as a champion against terrorism as well as for its respect for the rule of law. Rule of law means that the law is the same for everyone and is applied in each case based solely on the merits of the case. Any objective observer could combine these facts to expect that the U.S. would declare Israel as a terrorist state, impose economic and military sanctions against it, and enforce a no-fly zone over it — all steps that it has taken in other cases for alleged crime of state sponsorship of terrorism, the truth or falsehood of those allegations notwithstanding.

Everybody knows that it is not going to happen. The U.S. in fact has been the sponsor of Israeli terrorism. The question is why? Is it because Israel has a powerful lobby in Washington? Is it because some thugs and gangsters, with no respect for human life and no concept of morality, are controlling the U.S. Establishment? If any political scientist, moral preacher, or philosopher in the West has a different answer to this question, we should like to hear from them. But we submit that deep down all of this brutality is a moral philosophy — actually immoral philosophy– that has been carefully developed and that seems to be the dominant philosophy in the West today. It is called moral relativism. It says that right and wrong or good or evil are relative concepts. “There are no normative moral principles whatsoever which are intrinsically valid or universally obliging,” says Dr. Joseph Fletcher, a leading proponent of situation ethics. For decades he had advised business leaders, medical doctors, military commanders and government officials in the U.S. on the issue of ethics.

He explains: “If we are … obliged in conscience sometimes to tell white lies… then in conscience we might be obliged sometimes to engage in white thefts and white fornications and white killings and white breaking of promises and the like.” Right and wrong, according to this philosophy, are like beauty: they are in the eyes of the beholder. If Israel thinks that what it is doing is right, it must be right, because there is no universal yardstick that can be used to decide the question. The situation, and not any absolute moral principles, decides good and evil. With the help of this philosophy, Israeli terrorism simply becomes inevitable collateral damage, and everyone involved can go to sleep easily. It is easy to relax when both military power and morality are on your side!

But the victims of this morality are not just in Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, or Kashmir. They are to be found in the American society. Why the leader of the “civilized world” is also the leader in murders, fornications, adultery, street crimes and broken homes? Well, what do we expect when there is no absolute evil? The American society today seems to be floating aimlessly in the waters of moral relativism. And the waters are turning fast into a morass.

Actually the problem of moral philosophy is much deeper. The preachers of situation ethics are not without arguments. Their stock-in-trade is the complexity of real life and the failure of the Ten Commandments to allow for that complexity. Would you tell the truth about the hiding place of a friend to the would be murderer, they ask. If no, you just violated one of the ten commandments. If yes, you just became accomplice to the murder of your friend. They can now triumphantly declare that real life is complex, that right and wrong are to be decided based on every situation, and hence situation ethics or moral relativism is the correct morality. From those “humble beginnings” they proceed to declare that every wrong may be right and vice versa. Here, as an example, is their argument in support of adultery: Under some situation, unmarried love may be infinitely superior to married unlove.

But humanity hungers for a sense of right and wrong, for some absolute moral values. After successfully throwing away whatever remnants of revealed moral values it had, the western world is now trying to fabricate some new absolutes. Like the universal human rights of the U.N. that do not give any protection to the women and children in Kashmir or Lebanon but will provide full protection to gays and lesbians! The fabricated absolutes only serve the new immorality.

Having looked at this mess, one feels doubly grateful for the beautiful moral landscape that Islam offers. Here one finds a rich Shariah that provides the absolute values that no priest or preacher can change. They provide not only the badly needed answers to the issues of right and wrong, but also stability and security to our moral world. Simultaneously Islam offers a complete life example in the life of the Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, to offer guidance for the complexities of real life. Islam avoids the pitfall of just offering a few boy-scout principles for the moral life, that find their way to the show case rather than the real human life, and leave open the door for moral relativism.

Ultimately the value of a human society depends upon its ability to develop the framework that can separate right from wrong. All those frustrated with western failure here would do themselves a big favor by checking out the Islamic answer.

While reading this article, I cant help but think.  Imagine a full blown Shariah court system in South Africa – Now before the anti-Islam crowd get defensive.  I mean just courts for our own Muslim communities.

What I think will pose a bigger problem is not the non-Muslim’s fear or concern on this but rather many of South Africa’s ‘Muslim’ businessmen who have profiteered with anti-Islamic practices. From Riba to gambling to investing in haraam companies.  That said, I’m positive that if this is built, it will gain popularity and bring us closer to the path of Haqq.
Source:  The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge

The Mujaahideen have established yet another Shari’ah Court in Afghanistan and it has attracted large gatherings of Muslims in order to solve their issues; and the people want the Shari’ah Court over the corrupt courts of the Murtadeen since it is the law of Allah which is Just. This is obviously frustrating the Disbelievers and Apostates because every day, more people are realizing their corruption and injustice and running towards those who will grant them justice, security and peace.
This is what is meant by “uplifting the word of Allah” in the Jihaad. Establishing Shari’ah and being just and fair.

May Allah preserve the Islaamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Pakistan: Pro-Taliban militants set up Sharia courts in tribal area

Khar, 7 July (AKI/DAWN) – Pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan have established Sharia or Islamic courts in the Bajaur tribal region which borders Afghanistan.

A large number of people are believed to be waiting to use the courts established by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in order to resolve disputes instead of waiting for action by the tribal administration.

The courts have been functioning for a couple of weeks in the Sewai area, about 20 kilometres northwest of Khar, the regional headquarters of Bajaur tribal region.

About two dozen ulema or Muslim legal scholars have been designated as Qazis or judges ruling in accordance with Sharia or Islamic religious law.

“We have set up the courts in accordance with people’s wishes,” said Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar, adding that people were fed up with the previous legal system.

He said that the Qazis were “competent scholars well versed in Islamic jurisprudence”.

According to a report on the Pakistani daily Dawn, people were seen going to courts with issues relating to monetary matters and land and family disputes, and women bringing complaints about ill-treatment by their husbands.

Some people visiting the court told Dawn that the judicial system under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) was oppressive and the courts run by the tribal administration were not able to provide them justice.

“The Sharia courts are delivering speedy and cheap justice,” said Umar.

One man said that his dispute, which had been lingering for several years in a tribal administration court, had been decided by the Sharia court in a few days.

Maulvi Umar told journalists that people were approaching these courts voluntarily to get their long-standing disputes settled and the Taliban had not forced any litigant to go to the courts.

He said that inordinate delays in resolving disputes resulted in blood feuds which continued for decades.

“The Sharia courts resolve these disputes speedily and in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence,” he said.

Aimed at businessman in the Kwazulu-Natal area, from the brothers who run the AskImam website

click to enlarge

An interesting documentary on Shariah law in Nigeria, working alongside “western” law. I’m all for Shariah law, however i think there will be huge conflicts with western laws in more 1st world countries.

One has to admire the steadfastness of Esah (the judge) though I dont think his mindset will agree with many modern societies.

My take: I cant really identify with rural Africa much, perhaps a documentary in a middle eastern country where things are a bit more modern would clear up allot of misconceptions about Shariah Law. I’m all for Shariah, however trying to make a comparison with 1st world UK and 3rd world Africa will never really be fair. Nontheless, this is Youtube bandwidth well used.

This is a 6 part video series, each video is 10 minutes long.

Part 1:
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Part 2:

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Part 3:
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Part 4:
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Part 5:
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Part 6:
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