We need a section on sex segregation in Islam.-- 478jjjz ( talk) 22:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I see you have added the category of sexism to the article. That is a somewhat loaded term, isn't it? From looking at the possible meanings and implications of the term (hatred or prejudice for example), I would not say it is neutral.
That is not to say I am against explaining what Sharia means in terms of (in)equality of the sexes. I am against the use of inflammatory language.
Aquib ( talk) 02:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The addition of the category does seem like overreach to me. Certainly, regardless of one's position on sexism in sharia, there are large areas of sharia that have nothing to do with a person's sex or sex segregation. The current article could benefit from a 'criticism of Sharia' section which would address such things as claims of sexism; currently the best section for such claims is the confusing heading 'current issues' with the subheading 'women' Dialectric ( talk) 03:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I Westlawed the al-hibri article that furnishes the source for some of the claims in this article "Islamic and Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities or a History of Borrowing," and found only 8 cites. Since exceptional claims are made solely on the basis of this article, the source should be reliable, and there should be multiple sources, but this article has received relatively little attention, and much of the attention it has received is dismissive.
Khaled Abou El Fadl in Constitutionalism and the Islamic Sunni Legacy says:
I believe that these types of arguments are for the most part vacuous; they are the product of intellectual restlessness induced by the rather abysmal fortunes of the Islamic heritage in the modern age. As noted earlier, constitutional practice appropriates the values and intellectual heritage that prevails within a society. Although sparks of constitutional thought were definitely generated in the Islamic intellectual heritage, it would be an exaggeration to claim that constitutional values or normative orientations are a consistent part of this tradition.
Anver Emon in "REFLECTIONS ON THE ‘CONSTITUTION OF MEDINA‘: AN ESSAY ON METHODOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY IN ISLAMIC LEGAL HISTORY" says
Al-Hibri does not properly illustrate the basis for asserting that the founding fathers, let alone the general public in post-Revolutionary America, had an opinion about Islam, whether negative or positive.
Jayzames ( talk) 04:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Been looking through The Justice of Islam and nowhere does Rosen suggest that common law institutions were derived from or "adapted from" Sharia. The comparison he makes is one of analogy to something already familiar to readers. He also suggests that Confucian "law" is akin to a civil law system, and that Iroquois "law" is akin to a common law system, neither of which are meant to suggest family trees. Jayzames ( talk) 12:22, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The article relies heavily on a reference called "An American Muslim's Right to Die" from the Journal of Legal Medicine as the source for a number of highly exceptional claims. The source has zero citations on Westlaw. The article at present says
Sameer S. Vohra says the United States Constitution is similar to the Qur'an in that the Constitution is "the supreme law of the land and the basis from which the laws of the legislature originate."[90] Vohra further notes that the legislature is similar to the Sunnah in that the "legislature takes the framework of the Constitution and makes directives that involve the specific day-to-day situations of its citizens."[90] He also writes that the judicial decision-making process is similar to the qiyas and ijma methods, in that judicial decision-making is "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes," that "words of the Constitution or of statutes do not specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply," and that, "at times, it requires the judiciary to either use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute."[162]
The legislature ("Congress") is an elected body of representatives. The Sunnah is the biography and orally reported sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (SAAW). This is (again using qiyas. see how inane the parallels are?) like comparing the Federacion International de Football Association (FIFA) with the Diary of Anne Frank.
What Vohra says:
The United States Constitution is akin to the Qur'an. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the basis from which the laws of the legislature originate. Yet, the difference between these two sources is that the Constitution can change by the will of the people. The Qur'an is fixed for all time as the word of God. It is timeless and will always remain so.
The laws of the legislature are akin to the Sunna. The legislature takes the framework of the Constitution and makes directives that involve the specific day-to-day situations of its citizens. The laws of the legislature also can be changed by the will of the people. The Prophet's words, actions, and tacit approvals, however, are timeless. Further, unlike the legislature, the Prophet's actions were considered infallible and synonymous with the words of God *348 articulated in the Qur'an. There was no Supreme Court that could declare that the Prophet's actions violated the Qur'an
This amounts to saying that "The Quran is a lot like the Constitution if the United States had never been able to abolish slavery and give women the vote, and the Sunna is a lot like Congressional lawmaking if the Congressman had died 1400 years ago and no new laws had been made since then." In other words, a comparison that would make the Constitution no longer the Constitution and Congress no longer the Congress. Vohra is clearly making parallels in only the broadest sense by attempting to restate some aspects of Islamic law in terms familiar to American readers. He is not actually saying that the Quran and the Constitution are really functionally similar.
In fact the article is directed at health care practitioners, and is concerned with the issues of terminally ill Muslim patients, and only incidentally and in the vaguest way, touches on constitutional law. The similarities noted by Vohra are only of the most trivial kind, the fact that the Constitution can be changed by the will of the people, and that the legislature is considered by not a single American to be infallible (in fact quite the opposite) constitute differences so profound as to render these parallels meaningless. The use of reasoning by analogy ( qiyas) in both systems is also by itself meaningless. Such reasoning is universal, I've myself used it almost half a dozen times on this talk page alone, you might as well say (again more qiyas) that "sharia and US law are fundamentally similar because they are both defined with words." Jayzames ( talk) 11:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The (Sharia) article also says:
"He also writes that the judicial decision-making process is similar to the qiyas and ijma methods, in that judicial decision-making is "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes," that "words of the Constitution or of statutes do not specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply," and that, "at times, it requires the judiciary to either use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute."
In what society on earth is judicial decision making not "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes"? How possibly could the "words of the Constitution or of statutes... specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply"? Where on earth does the judiciary not "at times ... use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute"?
The article (Vohra) is not even about constitutional law, it is about the ethics of "assisted suicide," voluntary termination of life support, etc. for Muslim patients with terminal illness. Jayzames ( talk) 13:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Read it again, and it's still fluff. I can't put up a link here, but the Vohra article consists of "introduction to Islam" i.e. the 5 pillars, "Demographics of American Muslims" (younger, richer, better educated than natives), the same stuff already here about the sources of islamic law (usul al fiqh), very loose and trivial comparisons to American law made solely to phrase sharia in terms non-Muslim Americans can understand, and then to the actual point of the article, what to do for terminally ill patients. It goes on to say that Muslims don't have views that are drastically different than the current status quo (it's alright to pull the plug on vegetative patients, not alright to have physician assisted suicide), and after all this it's grand insight for dealing with Muslim patients?
"Muslim patients need their health care practitioners to be aware of their religious views when presenting medical advice."
That's it. This isn't really a quality source for any kind of exceptional claims about the main principles of Islamic law, except maybe for the sharia position on pulling the plug on comatose patients. Everything about big issues of constitutionalism is mentioned only in passing. Jayzames ( talk) 11:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
And Vohra was a third year law student at the time. Jayzames ( talk) 02:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I question the premise that there is anything particularly exceptional about people taking useful things they find and adapting them. It's simply how we make progress. Aquib ( talk) 13:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I have mentioned before, the British East India Company was heavily involved in the study and adaptation of Sharia in Bengal during the era the U.S. Constitution was being developed. Sharia was topical among British merchants politicians, and Colonial lawyers. To whatever extent lawyers were involved in the drafting of the American Constitution, they were British Colonial lawyers.
So comparing "some principles from Sharia were adapted to the U.S. Constitution" to the Exceptional belief "the world is flat" seems an absurd comparison.
Not saying they did, others have said that. Just saying it is not an exceptional claim.
Aquib ( talk) 13:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Aquib ( talk) 02:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Take the opinions of Islamophiliac authors like Christopher Weeramantry with a grain of salt. I don't know much about him, but he seems like Maurice Bucaille and other non-Muslim charlatans.-- 478jjjz ( talk) 01:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
A description of court proceedings is useful. It is not more important than the definition of Sharia.
The most important section in this article is the definition Next is a general description Court proceedings could follow the general description, or be a subsection in it ?Preceding unsigned comment added by Aquib american muslim ( talk ? contribs) 13:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I've been meaning to do this for some time. I was in the process of doing it a month ago when other matters took priority. Dictionary of the Holy Quran (Omar) makes it quite simple. Aquib ( talk) 01:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
????????? ?????? ??? ??? ???????????? ????? ??? ????????? ???????? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ???????? ??????????????
Aquib, you can't quote the Online Etymology Dictionary to contradict a source such as Lane's lexicon or the other sources that have been given here by Jayzames: the Online Etymology Dictionary is simply not a reliable enough source to contradict (or even call into doubt) those other sources. (See the Talk:Online Etymology Dictionary page amongst other places for some background on that source.)
And, as Jayzames has repeatedly pointed out, the material you are using about the 'Quranic Roots', whatever they might be, is simply irrelevant and is not giving the etymology of the word. You have been provided a mass of authoritative references here by Jayzames, with more patience than I have ever had in my entire life: If you cannot understand that these are authoritative then I would suggest that you should not be editing anything to do with this.
All the best. ?
Syncategoremata (
talk)
16:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Aquib when you fail to make an apposite response, it's called a non sequitur, see also derailment. This raises doubts about your competence, and in a much more fundamental way than "he needs to know more about the material." Jayzames ( talk) 22:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
After consulting the Asifa Quraishi article which constituted the source for this section, I removed this because of its weaselness, i.e. "similarities between Islamic law and the common law of the United States have been noted," and the fact that Asifa Quraishi is only noting similarities in methods of interpretation , including doctrines like "original intent," and not making the exceptional claim of functional similarity between the Quran and the Constitution or Sharia and US law. In fact the methods of interpretation noted by Quraishi are shared with all interpretations of texts, and are not unique to the US or the Constitution or even law.
Again using Qiyas, I will say that stuffing these weasel words in here to imply more commonality than is stated in the source is as bad faith as me insisting on stuffing references to Luther and the Protestant Reformation in the Salafism article, solely on the basis of the very crude similarity between the Lutheran doctrine of sola scriptura, and Salafist attempts to "return to the sources." While drawing such attention to such crude resemblances are useful to make Salafism understandable to someone who already comes from a Protestant background (and is in fact all that Quraishi is doing in attempting to introduce Islamic law to people with an American background) Salafism and the Protestant Reformation are really very different phenomena, and treating them as fundamentally similar is grossly misleading, and would probably be offensive to both Salafis and Lutherans. Jayzames ( talk) 01:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Which of course showed numerous other people objecting to the fringe theories spammed by jagged 85 all over Wikipedia and the general "rampant apologetics."
Etc etc. mostly negative comments, with
With this, I think it need hardly be said that the consensus is NOT in favor of Jagged 85's edits, and even more so after the "case law" of "Jagged 85 v. Wikipedia" Jayzames ( talk) 01:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
As a result of the recent introduction of controversial materials into the head of the article, it is necessary to more fully distinguish Sharia along it's axes of differentiation (tradition, modernity, fundamentalism, schools, sects, and now even Islamism) at an earlier point. The article cannot do justice to controversies, comparisons and generalizations without making these distinctions. Otherwise it will collapse into a muddle of apples-to-oranges comparisons, contrasts and examples without the necessary contextual cues.
One important aspect I have included in Definitions is a paragraph which puts Sharia in its historical political context and sets the stage for further differentiation among it's modern variants.
Aquib ( talk) 03:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Slowly going through John Makdisi's extremely arid article. This source has various problems including:
As for the comparison between the jury trial and the lafif, Makdisi is comparing the assembly of twelve peers to deliberate a finding of fact, about which they have personally seen or heard at a trial with the lafif, an assembly of twelve witnesses who are to attest about what they have personally seen or heard outside a trial. I can't really be all too sure about what exactly the institution of the lafif is, as Makdisi seems to deliberately obscure its nature for the purpose of polemics, but the lafif is an assembly of twelve witnesses to testify on the behalf of a particular plaintiff or defendant. Since twelve witnesses per se are unlikely to have seen a particular fact personally, I'm guessing that these twelve witnesses are assembled to testify to the character of a particular plaintiff or defendant and not any actual fact. This arises out of the unique importance sharia courts place on oaths, which in contrast to other legal systems, are themselves used as evidence. In other words, where secular courts use "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" to guarantee the accuracy of the following testimony, which is used as the actual evidence, sharia courts use "I swear to God I didn't do it," or "I swear to God he is not a rapist" as the actual exculpatory evidence (again on the assumption that no one would so endanger his soul) (While this may sound like a recipe for frequent perjury, in practice the fear of perdition apparently provided strong incentives to tell the truth, I'll eventually dig up a source somewhere, as this is something I should have put in the court proceedings section). The lafif is a team of witnesses (what we might call "expert witnesses") assembled in exceptional cases that provide evidence for a plaintiff/defendant, which the judge is bound to recognize (though Makdisi does not explain what happens when both sides assemble lafifs), they are definitely not a jury that listens to presentations and then deliberates whether something is true. Jayzames ( talk) 02:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
What Makdisi actually says is this (in a section tellingly called "Justice Not Morality") "(Islamic law) was concerned with civil sanctions for failure to do one's duty, not with moral sanctions for having a bad intention. Thus, it was a system focused on ensuring that an individual received justice, not that one be a good person. This approach stands in marked contrast to that of an activist state in which government manages the lives of its people and steers society towards the good life through its own comprehensive theory of what is best for its people." This statement was made in the larger context of an implicit comparison between the inquisitorial system of civil law (where the supposed goal for everyone is "finding the truth" and trials are like investigations) versus the common law adversarial system (where two sides do battle and the truth is assumed to be on the winning side). This has nothing to do with "human rights" or some abstract concept of justice, both of which involve some concept of morality, this is about both sides seeking the maximum remedy for plaintiffs) or the minimum damages or sentence (for defendants), i.e. "fairness over truth," and is therefore related by Makdisi to the common law system. Jayzames ( talk) 02:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the claim that sharia gives a right to privacy and that this was granted since the beginning of Islam and long before the West. This claim comes from two Quranic verses that say Muslims should not enter the homes of others without permission, and should not spy on others.
In fact, according to Sadiq Reza in "Islam's Fourth Amendment: Search and seizure in Islamic doctrine and Muslim practice" such assertions do not withstand serious scrutiny, and that while "authority for Fourth-Amendment-like protections certainly exists in Islamic law (from the Quran), assertions that such protections do so exist, or have ever been routinely practiced before the modern period, are unsupported by the doctrinal and historical records." Unlike Weeramantry, Sadiq Reza does not rely solely on bald assertion and actually provides examples based on what jurists have said about search and seizure as well as the practice in the premodern Ottoman empire. There is no exclusionary rule for evidence seized unlawfully, no penalty for violating privacy to perform a search, and very little evidence that there was any routine practice of protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Basically, even though the Quran can be interpreted as providing protection of privacy, such protection was not actually practiced nor even so interpreted by classical jurists.
This again suffers from presentism, imposing present day practices on people who did not think like we do. Jayzames ( talk) 06:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
The original article contained the following exceptional claims:
"Other possible influences of Islamic law on English common law include the concepts of a passive judge, impartial judge, res iudicata, the judge as a blank slate, individual self-definition, justice rather than morality, the law above the state, individualism, freedom of contract, privilege against self-incrimination, fairness over truth, individual autonomy, untrained and transitory decision making, overlap in testimonial and adjudicative tasks, appeal, dissent, day in court, prosecution for perjury, oral testimony, and the judge as a moderator, supervisor, announcer and enforcer rather than an adjudicator." from John Makdisi, whose issues as a source have already been described.
However, Makdisi here describes the emergence of doctrines like a "privilege against self incrimination" as the end result of a state orientation characteristic to civil law "activist states" versus common law "reactive states," and does not suggest direct borrowing of all the above from Islamic law. Jayzames ( talk) 10:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed this from "freedom of speech"
"Sharia allows freedom of speech in a broad sense, granting people the right to talk weasel words. However, Sharia does not allow freedom of speech that results in the harm of others unless there is a legal dispute, a public benefit, or a proven right to complaint."
This of course isn't cited. Also if sharia does not allow "freedom of speech that results in the harm of others," without specifying what "harm of others" means, "harm of others" can only be interpreted in a very "broad sense," and therefore cannot be regarded as resembling the concept of freedom of speech as it is generally understood. Jayzames ( talk) 11:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed reference to description of event from Abbasid period because it is not actually about freedom of speech (it's closer to freedom of religion, but not quite there either). Furthermore, such anecdotal descriptions don't actually show that there is freedom of speech under Islamic law. In fact, there are numerous ahadith where the Prophet (SAAW) ordered the assassination of poets who composed verses mocking him, one can thus argue that there are better grounds for arguing that freedom of speech is not protected under sharia. Jayzames ( talk) 14:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
This is the entire paragraph. So far, I only checked the first sentence.
Imposition of the Sharia is often accompanied by controversy,[6][7] and even violence,[8] due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized concepts of human rights and gender equality[9]. The most contested aspect of the Sharia involves the canonical hudud punishments (e.g. amputation, stoning, lashing, and beheading). Other contested aspects of sharia include unequal rules of evidence applied on the basis of religion and gender, and unequal rules of inheritance applied according to gender. Sharia's prohibitions on blasphemy and apostasy also depart from internationally recognized concepts of religious freedom. The OIC nations have released their own Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that are in accordance with their interpretation of Sharia.
The first sentence begins "Imposition of the Sharia is often accompanied by controversy". The citation is an article by the Asia Times Online (who are they?) talking about a dust up where a court ruled a on-Muslim could not get justice n a Sharia court and the common law did not provide a remedy. Huh? OK. The second citation is from the Guardian. Well, OK. It's a commentary on how there SHOULD be a big turnout for the protest. Then, in the beginning of the second paragraph this is what it says "Sadly, the turn out in Hyde Park will probably be quite small. " This is a citation for cointroversy due to IMPOSITION of Sharia? Huh?
Continuing the first sentence "and even violence,[8]" links to photographs of people injured in a riot touched off by a protest march against Sharia in Nigeria. That's not very insightful. The injured ladies appear to be Muslim. What actually happened here? There is no article per-se, just photos. Why cite photos of injured people?
Now the end of the sentence "due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized concepts of human rights and gender equality[9]. " The citation is to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", an admirable document but it is not a citation as to the statement this sentence makes.
So the citations used in this sentence, which claims controversy and violence is caused due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized human rights, do not support the assertion made. They are in fact shallow, inflammatory, misleading and baseless.
Come on, people, we can do better than this can't we? Was the dust-up in Malaysia about human rights violations, or a legal matter? Are photos of a riot appropriate or just cheap incendiaries? Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming the assertion is totally off the mark; it has a hardware store, off-the-shelf patina of truth. In other words it is one of the most insidious types of lies. It is a cheap, biased, inflammatory, misleading, distorted generalization covered with a fig leaf of citations. The citations do not support he assertion made in the sentence. The quality and nature of these citations are much worse, sloppier, more misleading, than any of the ones recently removed for the same reasons, by the same person who put these IN the article.
Ask yourself this question: Do these citations prove the controversy and violence are due to discrepancies in human rights, or do they just make you feel like they somehow must?
More on this first sentence, perhaps later. I might share my thoughts on the use of these words IMPOSITION and OFTEN. Then on to the rest of the paragraph if I feel like talking to the wall and wasting more breath. Please note I never once used the word hypocrisy in this entire rant.
Aquib ( talk) 02:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't read Arabic, but Wehr distinguishes between the spellings of Sharia by definition. The divine law definition is spelled differently. It begins with two vertical bars, I am assuming these are aliphs. Anybody?
The article begins with -> Sharia (Arabic: '?????? ?ar??a; [???riː?], "way" or "path"). I always assumed this was correct, but based on the research that has been done into the definition and etymology of the word, I am reexamining it.
There seems to be a wide variety of styles used for introductory sentences. I assume the form used by the Sharia article is due to Sharia's status as a "recent borrow" word. Helpful insights as to the Arabic are included in parenthesis.
But this article includes either a definition or etymology as the last item inside the parenthesis. Is it supposed to be definition or etymology? Is it correct? Does it need to be here? What standard are we following for this first sentence, where can I find more information on this style of introductory sentence?
Anyone?
Regards,
Aquib ( talk) 15:15, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
This is what the article formerly said:
"Islamic law also introduced the notion of allowing an accused suspect or defendant to have an agent or lawyer, known as a wakil, handle his/her defense. This was in contrast to early English common law, which "used lawyers to prosecute but the accused were left to handle their defense themselves." The English Parliament did not allow those accused of treason the right to retain lawyers until 1695, and for those accused of other felonies until 1836."
The reference comes from a brief book review of "The Islamic Criminal Justice System" by Ann E. Meyer. This is what Gamal Moursi Badr actually said:
"Conceding, for the sake of argument, Mayer's point that classical Islamic law, a thousand or more years ago, did not grant a right to counsel, it should be recalled that in common law for countless centuries the Crown used lawyers to prosecute but the accused were left to handle their defense themselves. Only in 1695 did Parliament grant those accused of treason the right to retain lawyers. The privilege was not extended to those accused of other felonies until 1836 when Parliament acted to allow them to retain lawyers.
Meyer responds:
"Professor Badr seems to have missed the point of my discussion of the difficulty of establishing that a right to counsel exists in Islamic law based on the fact that medieval texts give an absent party the right to appoint a wakil. Surely, wakl - or any other word in a medieval text - must be translated by an English term that accurately reflects the usage in the medieval legal treatises. Since lawyers were unknown in the classical Islamic tradition, where wakil is routinely used to refer to an agent, representative, or deputy, translating the word in the context of a medieval treatise as "lawyer" entails an anachronistic back-projection of a modern legal institution."
None of the above in any way suggests that sharia courts routinely granted defendants the right to professional representation, and certainly not centuries before the same right was granted in Britain. Badr is only arguing that the right to an attorney is only a relatively recent development in British common law, and that comparisons to medieval Islamic jurisprudence are unfair. Meyer argues that such comparisons are indeed fair because it is precisely medieval Islamic jurisprudence that is in the process of being revived and reapplied today..
This is what the article originally said: "The Islamic Hawala institution also influenced the development of the agency institution in English common law."
In fact Bawer makes no such assertion, and simply notes that agency exists in both systems.
"The present writer's own research led him some years ago to the discovery of a very curious parallel between the Common law and Islamic law. It is mentioned here for the benefit of those who are interested in parallels between disparate legal systems and, obviously, not to make a case for any interaction between the two."
In fact Badr's article is very far from making the exceptional claims he is misrepresented in the article as making.
"These parallels are an intellectual curiosity and provide some insight into the workings of each legal system. They do not necessarily indicate the existence of borrowing or influence. In law as in many a social science, diffusionists and proponents of separate development rub shoulders all the time. The most valid position would be to avoid any doctrinaire commitment to either point of view. We should keep our minds open to satisfactory evidence of actual borrowing or influence while considering parallels not so substantiated as mere manifestations of what an early Western authority on Islamic law aptly called "l'identite essentielle de l'ame humaine," the essential oneness of man's spirit."
For the same reasons I've removed the following text: "The transfer of debt, which was not permissible under Roman law but is practiced in modern civil law, may also have origins in Islamic law. The concept of an agency was also an "institution unknown to Roman law", where it was not possible for an individual to "conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent." The concept of an agency was introduced by Islamic jurists, and thus the civil law conception of agency may also have origins in Islamic law." Jayzames ( talk) 01:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
The article formerly said: "During the Islamic Golden Age, there was an early emphasis on freedom of speech in the Islamic caliphate. This was first declared by the Caliph Umar in the 7th century."
The source is actually favorably comparing Islamic law with medieval Christian judicial procedures e.g. "trial by ordeal."
"In contrast, we have only to quote the instructions given by Omar in the seventh century to the Muslim judges to show what a chasm separated the two conceptions: "Only decide on the basis of proof, be kind to the weak so that they can express themselves freely and without fear, deal on an equal footing with litigants by trying to reconcile them."
In no sense does this constitute a general endorsement of freedom of speech. Jayzames ( talk) 03:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm removing this on the basis of
As Gamal Moursi Badr has noted with respect to claims of borrowing of Roman law into Islamic law, "Some of (these claims of borrowing) again are so elementary in nature that they have to be considered primary products of the average human intellect, things which anyone can deduce from his own observations through his own reasoning and which nobody needs to borrow from anybody else." I think the concepts of "equity" (fairness) and "good faith" qualify as these. Jayzames ( talk) 03:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
We need a section on sex segregation in Islam.-- 478jjjz ( talk) 22:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I see you have added the category of sexism to the article. That is a somewhat loaded term, isn't it? From looking at the possible meanings and implications of the term (hatred or prejudice for example), I would not say it is neutral.
That is not to say I am against explaining what Sharia means in terms of (in)equality of the sexes. I am against the use of inflammatory language.
Aquib ( talk) 02:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The addition of the category does seem like overreach to me. Certainly, regardless of one's position on sexism in sharia, there are large areas of sharia that have nothing to do with a person's sex or sex segregation. The current article could benefit from a 'criticism of Sharia' section which would address such things as claims of sexism; currently the best section for such claims is the confusing heading 'current issues' with the subheading 'women' Dialectric ( talk) 03:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I Westlawed the al-hibri article that furnishes the source for some of the claims in this article "Islamic and Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities or a History of Borrowing," and found only 8 cites. Since exceptional claims are made solely on the basis of this article, the source should be reliable, and there should be multiple sources, but this article has received relatively little attention, and much of the attention it has received is dismissive.
Khaled Abou El Fadl in Constitutionalism and the Islamic Sunni Legacy says:
I believe that these types of arguments are for the most part vacuous; they are the product of intellectual restlessness induced by the rather abysmal fortunes of the Islamic heritage in the modern age. As noted earlier, constitutional practice appropriates the values and intellectual heritage that prevails within a society. Although sparks of constitutional thought were definitely generated in the Islamic intellectual heritage, it would be an exaggeration to claim that constitutional values or normative orientations are a consistent part of this tradition.
Anver Emon in "REFLECTIONS ON THE ‘CONSTITUTION OF MEDINA‘: AN ESSAY ON METHODOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY IN ISLAMIC LEGAL HISTORY" says
Al-Hibri does not properly illustrate the basis for asserting that the founding fathers, let alone the general public in post-Revolutionary America, had an opinion about Islam, whether negative or positive.
Jayzames ( talk) 04:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Been looking through The Justice of Islam and nowhere does Rosen suggest that common law institutions were derived from or "adapted from" Sharia. The comparison he makes is one of analogy to something already familiar to readers. He also suggests that Confucian "law" is akin to a civil law system, and that Iroquois "law" is akin to a common law system, neither of which are meant to suggest family trees. Jayzames ( talk) 12:22, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The article relies heavily on a reference called "An American Muslim's Right to Die" from the Journal of Legal Medicine as the source for a number of highly exceptional claims. The source has zero citations on Westlaw. The article at present says
Sameer S. Vohra says the United States Constitution is similar to the Qur'an in that the Constitution is "the supreme law of the land and the basis from which the laws of the legislature originate."[90] Vohra further notes that the legislature is similar to the Sunnah in that the "legislature takes the framework of the Constitution and makes directives that involve the specific day-to-day situations of its citizens."[90] He also writes that the judicial decision-making process is similar to the qiyas and ijma methods, in that judicial decision-making is "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes," that "words of the Constitution or of statutes do not specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply," and that, "at times, it requires the judiciary to either use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute."[162]
The legislature ("Congress") is an elected body of representatives. The Sunnah is the biography and orally reported sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (SAAW). This is (again using qiyas. see how inane the parallels are?) like comparing the Federacion International de Football Association (FIFA) with the Diary of Anne Frank.
What Vohra says:
The United States Constitution is akin to the Qur'an. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the basis from which the laws of the legislature originate. Yet, the difference between these two sources is that the Constitution can change by the will of the people. The Qur'an is fixed for all time as the word of God. It is timeless and will always remain so.
The laws of the legislature are akin to the Sunna. The legislature takes the framework of the Constitution and makes directives that involve the specific day-to-day situations of its citizens. The laws of the legislature also can be changed by the will of the people. The Prophet's words, actions, and tacit approvals, however, are timeless. Further, unlike the legislature, the Prophet's actions were considered infallible and synonymous with the words of God *348 articulated in the Qur'an. There was no Supreme Court that could declare that the Prophet's actions violated the Qur'an
This amounts to saying that "The Quran is a lot like the Constitution if the United States had never been able to abolish slavery and give women the vote, and the Sunna is a lot like Congressional lawmaking if the Congressman had died 1400 years ago and no new laws had been made since then." In other words, a comparison that would make the Constitution no longer the Constitution and Congress no longer the Congress. Vohra is clearly making parallels in only the broadest sense by attempting to restate some aspects of Islamic law in terms familiar to American readers. He is not actually saying that the Quran and the Constitution are really functionally similar.
In fact the article is directed at health care practitioners, and is concerned with the issues of terminally ill Muslim patients, and only incidentally and in the vaguest way, touches on constitutional law. The similarities noted by Vohra are only of the most trivial kind, the fact that the Constitution can be changed by the will of the people, and that the legislature is considered by not a single American to be infallible (in fact quite the opposite) constitute differences so profound as to render these parallels meaningless. The use of reasoning by analogy ( qiyas) in both systems is also by itself meaningless. Such reasoning is universal, I've myself used it almost half a dozen times on this talk page alone, you might as well say (again more qiyas) that "sharia and US law are fundamentally similar because they are both defined with words." Jayzames ( talk) 11:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The (Sharia) article also says:
"He also writes that the judicial decision-making process is similar to the qiyas and ijma methods, in that judicial decision-making is "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes," that "words of the Constitution or of statutes do not specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply," and that, "at times, it requires the judiciary to either use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute."
In what society on earth is judicial decision making not "a means by which the law is applied to individual disputes"? How possibly could the "words of the Constitution or of statutes... specifically address all the possible situations to which they may apply"? Where on earth does the judiciary not "at times ... use the consensus of previous decisions or reason by analogy to find the correct principle to resolve the dispute"?
The article (Vohra) is not even about constitutional law, it is about the ethics of "assisted suicide," voluntary termination of life support, etc. for Muslim patients with terminal illness. Jayzames ( talk) 13:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Read it again, and it's still fluff. I can't put up a link here, but the Vohra article consists of "introduction to Islam" i.e. the 5 pillars, "Demographics of American Muslims" (younger, richer, better educated than natives), the same stuff already here about the sources of islamic law (usul al fiqh), very loose and trivial comparisons to American law made solely to phrase sharia in terms non-Muslim Americans can understand, and then to the actual point of the article, what to do for terminally ill patients. It goes on to say that Muslims don't have views that are drastically different than the current status quo (it's alright to pull the plug on vegetative patients, not alright to have physician assisted suicide), and after all this it's grand insight for dealing with Muslim patients?
"Muslim patients need their health care practitioners to be aware of their religious views when presenting medical advice."
That's it. This isn't really a quality source for any kind of exceptional claims about the main principles of Islamic law, except maybe for the sharia position on pulling the plug on comatose patients. Everything about big issues of constitutionalism is mentioned only in passing. Jayzames ( talk) 11:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
And Vohra was a third year law student at the time. Jayzames ( talk) 02:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I question the premise that there is anything particularly exceptional about people taking useful things they find and adapting them. It's simply how we make progress. Aquib ( talk) 13:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I have mentioned before, the British East India Company was heavily involved in the study and adaptation of Sharia in Bengal during the era the U.S. Constitution was being developed. Sharia was topical among British merchants politicians, and Colonial lawyers. To whatever extent lawyers were involved in the drafting of the American Constitution, they were British Colonial lawyers.
So comparing "some principles from Sharia were adapted to the U.S. Constitution" to the Exceptional belief "the world is flat" seems an absurd comparison.
Not saying they did, others have said that. Just saying it is not an exceptional claim.
Aquib ( talk) 13:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Aquib ( talk) 02:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Take the opinions of Islamophiliac authors like Christopher Weeramantry with a grain of salt. I don't know much about him, but he seems like Maurice Bucaille and other non-Muslim charlatans.-- 478jjjz ( talk) 01:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
A description of court proceedings is useful. It is not more important than the definition of Sharia.
The most important section in this article is the definition Next is a general description Court proceedings could follow the general description, or be a subsection in it ?Preceding unsigned comment added by Aquib american muslim ( talk ? contribs) 13:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I've been meaning to do this for some time. I was in the process of doing it a month ago when other matters took priority. Dictionary of the Holy Quran (Omar) makes it quite simple. Aquib ( talk) 01:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
????????? ?????? ??? ??? ???????????? ????? ??? ????????? ???????? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ???????? ??????????????
Aquib, you can't quote the Online Etymology Dictionary to contradict a source such as Lane's lexicon or the other sources that have been given here by Jayzames: the Online Etymology Dictionary is simply not a reliable enough source to contradict (or even call into doubt) those other sources. (See the Talk:Online Etymology Dictionary page amongst other places for some background on that source.)
And, as Jayzames has repeatedly pointed out, the material you are using about the 'Quranic Roots', whatever they might be, is simply irrelevant and is not giving the etymology of the word. You have been provided a mass of authoritative references here by Jayzames, with more patience than I have ever had in my entire life: If you cannot understand that these are authoritative then I would suggest that you should not be editing anything to do with this.
All the best. ?
Syncategoremata (
talk)
16:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Aquib when you fail to make an apposite response, it's called a non sequitur, see also derailment. This raises doubts about your competence, and in a much more fundamental way than "he needs to know more about the material." Jayzames ( talk) 22:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
After consulting the Asifa Quraishi article which constituted the source for this section, I removed this because of its weaselness, i.e. "similarities between Islamic law and the common law of the United States have been noted," and the fact that Asifa Quraishi is only noting similarities in methods of interpretation , including doctrines like "original intent," and not making the exceptional claim of functional similarity between the Quran and the Constitution or Sharia and US law. In fact the methods of interpretation noted by Quraishi are shared with all interpretations of texts, and are not unique to the US or the Constitution or even law.
Again using Qiyas, I will say that stuffing these weasel words in here to imply more commonality than is stated in the source is as bad faith as me insisting on stuffing references to Luther and the Protestant Reformation in the Salafism article, solely on the basis of the very crude similarity between the Lutheran doctrine of sola scriptura, and Salafist attempts to "return to the sources." While drawing such attention to such crude resemblances are useful to make Salafism understandable to someone who already comes from a Protestant background (and is in fact all that Quraishi is doing in attempting to introduce Islamic law to people with an American background) Salafism and the Protestant Reformation are really very different phenomena, and treating them as fundamentally similar is grossly misleading, and would probably be offensive to both Salafis and Lutherans. Jayzames ( talk) 01:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Which of course showed numerous other people objecting to the fringe theories spammed by jagged 85 all over Wikipedia and the general "rampant apologetics."
Etc etc. mostly negative comments, with
With this, I think it need hardly be said that the consensus is NOT in favor of Jagged 85's edits, and even more so after the "case law" of "Jagged 85 v. Wikipedia" Jayzames ( talk) 01:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
As a result of the recent introduction of controversial materials into the head of the article, it is necessary to more fully distinguish Sharia along it's axes of differentiation (tradition, modernity, fundamentalism, schools, sects, and now even Islamism) at an earlier point. The article cannot do justice to controversies, comparisons and generalizations without making these distinctions. Otherwise it will collapse into a muddle of apples-to-oranges comparisons, contrasts and examples without the necessary contextual cues.
One important aspect I have included in Definitions is a paragraph which puts Sharia in its historical political context and sets the stage for further differentiation among it's modern variants.
Aquib ( talk) 03:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Slowly going through John Makdisi's extremely arid article. This source has various problems including:
As for the comparison between the jury trial and the lafif, Makdisi is comparing the assembly of twelve peers to deliberate a finding of fact, about which they have personally seen or heard at a trial with the lafif, an assembly of twelve witnesses who are to attest about what they have personally seen or heard outside a trial. I can't really be all too sure about what exactly the institution of the lafif is, as Makdisi seems to deliberately obscure its nature for the purpose of polemics, but the lafif is an assembly of twelve witnesses to testify on the behalf of a particular plaintiff or defendant. Since twelve witnesses per se are unlikely to have seen a particular fact personally, I'm guessing that these twelve witnesses are assembled to testify to the character of a particular plaintiff or defendant and not any actual fact. This arises out of the unique importance sharia courts place on oaths, which in contrast to other legal systems, are themselves used as evidence. In other words, where secular courts use "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" to guarantee the accuracy of the following testimony, which is used as the actual evidence, sharia courts use "I swear to God I didn't do it," or "I swear to God he is not a rapist" as the actual exculpatory evidence (again on the assumption that no one would so endanger his soul) (While this may sound like a recipe for frequent perjury, in practice the fear of perdition apparently provided strong incentives to tell the truth, I'll eventually dig up a source somewhere, as this is something I should have put in the court proceedings section). The lafif is a team of witnesses (what we might call "expert witnesses") assembled in exceptional cases that provide evidence for a plaintiff/defendant, which the judge is bound to recognize (though Makdisi does not explain what happens when both sides assemble lafifs), they are definitely not a jury that listens to presentations and then deliberates whether something is true. Jayzames ( talk) 02:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
What Makdisi actually says is this (in a section tellingly called "Justice Not Morality") "(Islamic law) was concerned with civil sanctions for failure to do one's duty, not with moral sanctions for having a bad intention. Thus, it was a system focused on ensuring that an individual received justice, not that one be a good person. This approach stands in marked contrast to that of an activist state in which government manages the lives of its people and steers society towards the good life through its own comprehensive theory of what is best for its people." This statement was made in the larger context of an implicit comparison between the inquisitorial system of civil law (where the supposed goal for everyone is "finding the truth" and trials are like investigations) versus the common law adversarial system (where two sides do battle and the truth is assumed to be on the winning side). This has nothing to do with "human rights" or some abstract concept of justice, both of which involve some concept of morality, this is about both sides seeking the maximum remedy for plaintiffs) or the minimum damages or sentence (for defendants), i.e. "fairness over truth," and is therefore related by Makdisi to the common law system. Jayzames ( talk) 02:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the claim that sharia gives a right to privacy and that this was granted since the beginning of Islam and long before the West. This claim comes from two Quranic verses that say Muslims should not enter the homes of others without permission, and should not spy on others.
In fact, according to Sadiq Reza in "Islam's Fourth Amendment: Search and seizure in Islamic doctrine and Muslim practice" such assertions do not withstand serious scrutiny, and that while "authority for Fourth-Amendment-like protections certainly exists in Islamic law (from the Quran), assertions that such protections do so exist, or have ever been routinely practiced before the modern period, are unsupported by the doctrinal and historical records." Unlike Weeramantry, Sadiq Reza does not rely solely on bald assertion and actually provides examples based on what jurists have said about search and seizure as well as the practice in the premodern Ottoman empire. There is no exclusionary rule for evidence seized unlawfully, no penalty for violating privacy to perform a search, and very little evidence that there was any routine practice of protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Basically, even though the Quran can be interpreted as providing protection of privacy, such protection was not actually practiced nor even so interpreted by classical jurists.
This again suffers from presentism, imposing present day practices on people who did not think like we do. Jayzames ( talk) 06:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
The original article contained the following exceptional claims:
"Other possible influences of Islamic law on English common law include the concepts of a passive judge, impartial judge, res iudicata, the judge as a blank slate, individual self-definition, justice rather than morality, the law above the state, individualism, freedom of contract, privilege against self-incrimination, fairness over truth, individual autonomy, untrained and transitory decision making, overlap in testimonial and adjudicative tasks, appeal, dissent, day in court, prosecution for perjury, oral testimony, and the judge as a moderator, supervisor, announcer and enforcer rather than an adjudicator." from John Makdisi, whose issues as a source have already been described.
However, Makdisi here describes the emergence of doctrines like a "privilege against self incrimination" as the end result of a state orientation characteristic to civil law "activist states" versus common law "reactive states," and does not suggest direct borrowing of all the above from Islamic law. Jayzames ( talk) 10:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed this from "freedom of speech"
"Sharia allows freedom of speech in a broad sense, granting people the right to talk weasel words. However, Sharia does not allow freedom of speech that results in the harm of others unless there is a legal dispute, a public benefit, or a proven right to complaint."
This of course isn't cited. Also if sharia does not allow "freedom of speech that results in the harm of others," without specifying what "harm of others" means, "harm of others" can only be interpreted in a very "broad sense," and therefore cannot be regarded as resembling the concept of freedom of speech as it is generally understood. Jayzames ( talk) 11:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed reference to description of event from Abbasid period because it is not actually about freedom of speech (it's closer to freedom of religion, but not quite there either). Furthermore, such anecdotal descriptions don't actually show that there is freedom of speech under Islamic law. In fact, there are numerous ahadith where the Prophet (SAAW) ordered the assassination of poets who composed verses mocking him, one can thus argue that there are better grounds for arguing that freedom of speech is not protected under sharia. Jayzames ( talk) 14:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
This is the entire paragraph. So far, I only checked the first sentence.
Imposition of the Sharia is often accompanied by controversy,[6][7] and even violence,[8] due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized concepts of human rights and gender equality[9]. The most contested aspect of the Sharia involves the canonical hudud punishments (e.g. amputation, stoning, lashing, and beheading). Other contested aspects of sharia include unequal rules of evidence applied on the basis of religion and gender, and unequal rules of inheritance applied according to gender. Sharia's prohibitions on blasphemy and apostasy also depart from internationally recognized concepts of religious freedom. The OIC nations have released their own Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that are in accordance with their interpretation of Sharia.
The first sentence begins "Imposition of the Sharia is often accompanied by controversy". The citation is an article by the Asia Times Online (who are they?) talking about a dust up where a court ruled a on-Muslim could not get justice n a Sharia court and the common law did not provide a remedy. Huh? OK. The second citation is from the Guardian. Well, OK. It's a commentary on how there SHOULD be a big turnout for the protest. Then, in the beginning of the second paragraph this is what it says "Sadly, the turn out in Hyde Park will probably be quite small. " This is a citation for cointroversy due to IMPOSITION of Sharia? Huh?
Continuing the first sentence "and even violence,[8]" links to photographs of people injured in a riot touched off by a protest march against Sharia in Nigeria. That's not very insightful. The injured ladies appear to be Muslim. What actually happened here? There is no article per-se, just photos. Why cite photos of injured people?
Now the end of the sentence "due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized concepts of human rights and gender equality[9]. " The citation is to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", an admirable document but it is not a citation as to the statement this sentence makes.
So the citations used in this sentence, which claims controversy and violence is caused due to discrepancies between Sharia and internationally recognized human rights, do not support the assertion made. They are in fact shallow, inflammatory, misleading and baseless.
Come on, people, we can do better than this can't we? Was the dust-up in Malaysia about human rights violations, or a legal matter? Are photos of a riot appropriate or just cheap incendiaries? Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming the assertion is totally off the mark; it has a hardware store, off-the-shelf patina of truth. In other words it is one of the most insidious types of lies. It is a cheap, biased, inflammatory, misleading, distorted generalization covered with a fig leaf of citations. The citations do not support he assertion made in the sentence. The quality and nature of these citations are much worse, sloppier, more misleading, than any of the ones recently removed for the same reasons, by the same person who put these IN the article.
Ask yourself this question: Do these citations prove the controversy and violence are due to discrepancies in human rights, or do they just make you feel like they somehow must?
More on this first sentence, perhaps later. I might share my thoughts on the use of these words IMPOSITION and OFTEN. Then on to the rest of the paragraph if I feel like talking to the wall and wasting more breath. Please note I never once used the word hypocrisy in this entire rant.
Aquib ( talk) 02:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't read Arabic, but Wehr distinguishes between the spellings of Sharia by definition. The divine law definition is spelled differently. It begins with two vertical bars, I am assuming these are aliphs. Anybody?
The article begins with -> Sharia (Arabic: '?????? ?ar??a; [???riː?], "way" or "path"). I always assumed this was correct, but based on the research that has been done into the definition and etymology of the word, I am reexamining it.
There seems to be a wide variety of styles used for introductory sentences. I assume the form used by the Sharia article is due to Sharia's status as a "recent borrow" word. Helpful insights as to the Arabic are included in parenthesis.
But this article includes either a definition or etymology as the last item inside the parenthesis. Is it supposed to be definition or etymology? Is it correct? Does it need to be here? What standard are we following for this first sentence, where can I find more information on this style of introductory sentence?
Anyone?
Regards,
Aquib ( talk) 15:15, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
This is what the article formerly said:
"Islamic law also introduced the notion of allowing an accused suspect or defendant to have an agent or lawyer, known as a wakil, handle his/her defense. This was in contrast to early English common law, which "used lawyers to prosecute but the accused were left to handle their defense themselves." The English Parliament did not allow those accused of treason the right to retain lawyers until 1695, and for those accused of other felonies until 1836."
The reference comes from a brief book review of "The Islamic Criminal Justice System" by Ann E. Meyer. This is what Gamal Moursi Badr actually said:
"Conceding, for the sake of argument, Mayer's point that classical Islamic law, a thousand or more years ago, did not grant a right to counsel, it should be recalled that in common law for countless centuries the Crown used lawyers to prosecute but the accused were left to handle their defense themselves. Only in 1695 did Parliament grant those accused of treason the right to retain lawyers. The privilege was not extended to those accused of other felonies until 1836 when Parliament acted to allow them to retain lawyers.
Meyer responds:
"Professor Badr seems to have missed the point of my discussion of the difficulty of establishing that a right to counsel exists in Islamic law based on the fact that medieval texts give an absent party the right to appoint a wakil. Surely, wakl - or any other word in a medieval text - must be translated by an English term that accurately reflects the usage in the medieval legal treatises. Since lawyers were unknown in the classical Islamic tradition, where wakil is routinely used to refer to an agent, representative, or deputy, translating the word in the context of a medieval treatise as "lawyer" entails an anachronistic back-projection of a modern legal institution."
None of the above in any way suggests that sharia courts routinely granted defendants the right to professional representation, and certainly not centuries before the same right was granted in Britain. Badr is only arguing that the right to an attorney is only a relatively recent development in British common law, and that comparisons to medieval Islamic jurisprudence are unfair. Meyer argues that such comparisons are indeed fair because it is precisely medieval Islamic jurisprudence that is in the process of being revived and reapplied today..
This is what the article originally said: "The Islamic Hawala institution also influenced the development of the agency institution in English common law."
In fact Bawer makes no such assertion, and simply notes that agency exists in both systems.
"The present writer's own research led him some years ago to the discovery of a very curious parallel between the Common law and Islamic law. It is mentioned here for the benefit of those who are interested in parallels between disparate legal systems and, obviously, not to make a case for any interaction between the two."
In fact Badr's article is very far from making the exceptional claims he is misrepresented in the article as making.
"These parallels are an intellectual curiosity and provide some insight into the workings of each legal system. They do not necessarily indicate the existence of borrowing or influence. In law as in many a social science, diffusionists and proponents of separate development rub shoulders all the time. The most valid position would be to avoid any doctrinaire commitment to either point of view. We should keep our minds open to satisfactory evidence of actual borrowing or influence while considering parallels not so substantiated as mere manifestations of what an early Western authority on Islamic law aptly called "l'identite essentielle de l'ame humaine," the essential oneness of man's spirit."
For the same reasons I've removed the following text: "The transfer of debt, which was not permissible under Roman law but is practiced in modern civil law, may also have origins in Islamic law. The concept of an agency was also an "institution unknown to Roman law", where it was not possible for an individual to "conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent." The concept of an agency was introduced by Islamic jurists, and thus the civil law conception of agency may also have origins in Islamic law." Jayzames ( talk) 01:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
The article formerly said: "During the Islamic Golden Age, there was an early emphasis on freedom of speech in the Islamic caliphate. This was first declared by the Caliph Umar in the 7th century."
The source is actually favorably comparing Islamic law with medieval Christian judicial procedures e.g. "trial by ordeal."
"In contrast, we have only to quote the instructions given by Omar in the seventh century to the Muslim judges to show what a chasm separated the two conceptions: "Only decide on the basis of proof, be kind to the weak so that they can express themselves freely and without fear, deal on an equal footing with litigants by trying to reconcile them."
In no sense does this constitute a general endorsement of freedom of speech. Jayzames ( talk) 03:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm removing this on the basis of
As Gamal Moursi Badr has noted with respect to claims of borrowing of Roman law into Islamic law, "Some of (these claims of borrowing) again are so elementary in nature that they have to be considered primary products of the average human intellect, things which anyone can deduce from his own observations through his own reasoning and which nobody needs to borrow from anybody else." I think the concepts of "equity" (fairness) and "good faith" qualify as these. Jayzames ( talk) 03:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)