Sharia in Iraq?

American lawmakers are up in arms over a December action of Iraq's Governing Council that would:

Apply the Islamic Sharia?s stipulations in regard to marriage, engagement, marriage contract, marriage eligibility, marriage registration, unmarriageable persons, marriage of clergymen, marital rights including mahar-dower, alimony, divorce, judicial divorce, repudiation (to divorce one?s wife in return for monetary compensation to be paid by her to him), iddat (period during which a widow or divorce may not remarry), succession, descendant expenses, lactation, child custody, ascendants, next of kin, will, devise, endow, inheritance in all official courts ( personal affairs) and according to its schools.

Cancel all laws, resolution, regulations, directives, statements, and stipulations that contradict clause (1) of this resolution.

(The above text was found here and has not been verified beyond that.)

Iraqi strongman Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority apparently have to approve the resolution for it to go into effect, which they have yet to do. A text of a proposed letter of protest to Bremer on this matter can be found here, for those of you into that sort of thing.

Comments

[Tim Cavanaugh]

There's an official Sharia rule on lactation?

Not only is there an official rule, but this is a suspiciously popular topic among tele-imams-generally with injunctions to continue breastfeeding up to three or five years of age. I have an aunt-in-law who sits watching a local religious broadcast in Lebanon and screaming at the tv: "Listen to this asshole! If it's so important, let him breastfeed the kids!"

[rst]

What would you expect from such an anachronistic society? They'll squabble, eventually have themselves a little Western-inspired civil war, complete with burning-in-effigy, tribal chants, kids with AKs, and suicide moms; we'll back the wrong horse as usual, they'll kill less of our soldiers than die domestically at bases (while the liberals cry and the rest of us, who can add, say, "at least they died for something other than training") and life will go on, effecting tiny changes where we expected the big ones. Have another hit and enjoy the show.

[Andrew]

It will be interesting to see what as Islamic democracy will do about all sorts of civil questions. I, myself, don't know enough about it-- although I am sure we are all due for an education in the future.

Most Western countries accomadate a week-end derived from Jewish and Christian traditions and note major Christian holidays. Any predominantly Moslem society needs to do something about the prayercall, the Friday sabbath and the long and moveable Ramadan holiday. Iraq will need to define the status of the shia shrine cities.

Western liberals who are variously ACLU types and multi-culturalists don't appear to have given these matters any real thought.

A lot of libertarians appear to yearn for some sort of Arab Ataturk to modernise the towell-heads "kicking and screaming, if need be"...I don't find the idea convincing, at all.

If in Iran the Islamic council was tossed, and laws were truly adopted by majority decision, for all I know the majority might prefer women to cover their hair in public for another generation. Why wouldn't Iran then be a democracy, with a Headscarf Law-- if France is a democracy, with an Anti-Headscarf Law?

The leader in Nigeria is claiming that allowing a form of sharia on a state-by-state basis, will allow it to "fizzle"-- I don't know as I agree...but I understand his reasoning.

My own prejudice leans to majority rule. Singapore strikes me as an exception, unlikely to be repeated elsewhere. I think the delay on elections isn't working out well in Iraq.

I don't quite understand those who claim Saddam for a "moderniser", if 50 years of Baathist brutality couldn't produce a secular majority.

[insenstive jerk]

Do they have tele-tollahs there too?

"Just call our Aya-TOLL-ah free number..."

[Only Ed]

Confused,

Shaquira IS a singer. So is Shania.
Both may lactate in Muslim countries, so long as they get permission from Sharia.

[thoreau]

Shania and Shakira are only singers because Sharia isn't in place to stop them.

Got it?

[Just stopped laughing]

Thoreau's a buzz-kill.

[Injun Joe]

Him not get joke.
Him heepum dour paleface.

[joe]

"Western liberals who are variously ACLU types and multi-culturalists don't appear to have given these matters any real thought."

I submit, Andrew, that there have been hundreds of thousands of pages on "these matters" published in the past two decades by ACLU types and multi-culturalists, and you should should spend more time in the worthwhile pursuit of reading up on what your opposition is thinking.

So, hawks, what's the best way to the liberal, democratizing transformation in the Middle East (the REAL reason for this war, which wasn't about WMDs): a colonial military government under constant guerilla attack, or the imposition of Sharia?

[dhex]

"Listen to this asshole! If it's so important, let him breastfeed the kids!"

amen.

aaaaaaaaayyyyyy-men!

[TJ]

Good question, Joe. In case hawks want to quibble that some other government is likely, let me just add to the question: If you think that a third government type is more likely, please justify your supposition.

Of course, there's always the assertion that we just had to kick Saddam's ass, before he came over and kicked ours. Groan.

"My own prejudice leans to majority rule."

Yikes! In a multicultural society like Iraq, this is likely to be a bigger bloodbath than Saddam's rule. I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with rst, at least about the likelyhood of civil war. rst could stand to be a trifle more sensitive about the U.S. instigating said civil war, but then, that's rst.

[Eric]

The Bush Administration has little respect for the seperation of religion and government at home. Why would you expect them to respect the concept abroad?

[fyodor]

Eric,

Wrong religion!

[nobody]

There's an official Sharia rule on lactation?
Is it too late to reinstate Saddam?

[Jean Bart]

*cackle*

[dude]

Next set of talking points to come down the pike:

"A theocracy is still better than Saddam. Look at Iran. It isn't all that bad."

[Gadfly]

Iraq needs an Ayatolla Thurmond or Wallace to push their state's rights agenda.

But wait. They're a sovereign country.

[Confused]

I thought Shaquira was a singer.

[dhex]

yeah, what the hell does "lactation" refer to? breastfeeding?

[Enough Already]

Oh no.
Don't say "breast."
Pleeeeeze?

[the lactation expert]

I'm not sure what does "lactation" mean but if it is breastfeeding then I think know what they are talking about here (and no it is not related to whether a mother can breastfeed her baby in public or not).

When a mother is unable to breastfeed her new born baby (usually due to illness) she would ask a female relative/friend who also had a new born baby to breastfeed her baby. Now the first baby is considered a brother (or a sister) to the children of the second women. This makes it illegal for the baby to marry any of them when they grow up.

This was a common practice in the Middle East before baby formula was invented.

[the lactation expert]

I'm not sure what does "lactation" mean but if it is breastfeeding then I think know what they are talking about here (and no it is not related to whether a mother can breastfeed her baby in public or not).

When a mother is unable to breastfeed her new born baby (usually due to illness) she would ask a female relative/friend who also had a new born baby to breastfeed her baby. Now the first baby is considered a brother (or a sister) to the children of the second women. This makes it illegal for the baby to marry any of them when they grow up.

This was a common practice in the Middle East before baby formula was invented.

[Andrew]

In that case Joe, why call it a "mess"? Why not get the ball rolling? Perhaps even in situations where you would almost certainly see an immediate retro-gression? How wise is it to help the FLN regime in Algeria keep the screws tightened down?

What was wrong with getting it all STARTED? Especially since even the most backward state in Iraq, having its origins in our actions to depose Saddam, would have a difficult time overtly demonising the US?

You just defined an Islamic democracy as the upper limit of the possible (I am less sure, myself), so why characterise it as a policy failure? Wouldn't it be a desideratum?

[rst]

what's the best way to the liberal, democratizing transformation in the Middle East

Continued economic globalization and the pervasion of the internet (infrastructure), as well as a wide variety of proxies so as to circumvent laws which censor certain aspects of the web in certain countries. Unfortunately, all of that is for naught until there is some solution to the problem of the Palestinians. So it's either genocide or the bargaining table for a few more years.

Frankly, there will be no complete stability until either America and Israel are destroyed, or every last vestige of Wahhabism is wiped from the earth.

that's rst.

Indeed. The world deserved this mess for their own lack of action, and the U.S. is bearing the brunt of it. The U.S. did the right thing, if for the wrong reasons (and the if is an if). The wrong thing was to allow Hussein to remain in power, and it is as wrong now as it was in '91 when the world first decided to sit on its cowardly hands, stuff S.H. back into Baghdad, and barricade him with sanctions. That the wrong decision was further supported by the "right" reasons of international "legitimacy" and "legality" thus made it the only choice for the Europeans. International legitimacy and legality has in the past upheld slavery, genocide, and the carving up of the third world for the benefit of European colonization. So pardon me if I take a big metaphorical shit on the concept of international legitimacy.

In the battle between doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons, well, we all ripped Ollie North for doing the latter, didn't we?

The future of Iraq at this point is up to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is not particularly good at making tough decisions. So, in all likelihood it and Iran will sink into the ninth level of hell, and lucky for the international "community," they'll have someone else to point a finger at.

[Andrew]

Joe and TJ

Who do I think will win? I can only supply my unfounded judgment that secularism will actually win in the political arena-- my real concerns are whether democratic institutions themselves will endure, and prove effective against mob violence (acid splashed on un-veiled women eg).

I strongly feel that Iraq has a better chance for this (across the board, anyway) if Iraq remains a unitary state. I frankly never expected South Africa's transition to majority rule to go so well, and believe it has much to do with the perception of most parties that much is gained by holding the whole nation together.

I can imagine varying shades of Islamicism alternating with secularism-- works for me so long as there is a NEXT election. I do expect post-occupation Iraq to resemble India more than Pakistan. One hopes...right?

(PS-- the commonplace I always heard among British and American liberals was-- "Of course the blacks will slaughter the whites-- what else could be expected?-- but we HAVE to have majority rule, you know.")

[Andrew]

Joe

Fine. Now YOU can prove that you given some thought to this, by saying something to the point.

[joe]

Well Andrew, as tempting as it to say to you people "It's your mess, you clean it up," I do recognize that even those of us who were right about the stupidity of this adventure have a responsibility to take a big bite of the shit sandwich you prepared for us. So here goes:

The tyrannical theocracies of 1600s America were no less oppressive than a contemporary Islamic theocracy. The Puritans used to hang Quakers for being a threat to public morals. Quakers! Getting from there to here did not involve a top down regime change, but a gradual evolution based on cultural elements that were already there. For example, the individual liberty we respect today grew out of the belief that each property owning man had the right to be an absolute tyrant among his own family, without outside intervention. Or, democracy started at teh town meeting level, expanded to the legislative branch of state government, then the executive branch, then the legislative branch of a national government, and final the executive branch of the national government. That took about 300 years.

Democratic republics can only thrive in the Islamic world if they are Islamic Democratic Republics (and I'm not talking about the misnamed "Islamic Republics" that exist today). I think the calling of a Loya Jirga in Afghanistan was a smart move, because that's an institution that clearly has the potential to grow into the foundation of a democratic polity.

Ever read the Magna Carta? It's about noblemen being able to oppress their peasants without the King interfering. Baby steps.

[TJ]

rst,
"Continued economic globalization and the pervasion of the internet... "

Yep, can't argue with that.

"U.S. did the right thing..."

That I can argue with. I share the sentiment of wishing Saddam was booted out in '91, but this latest war was a mistake for several reasons. It was a mistake because there was no convincing reason for war (some may disagree), thus denying the U.S. clear moral high ground. It was a mistake because the probability for making things better was (and is) slim. What's the point of starting a war of "liberation" if things are no better 5 or 10 years later? The immediate loss of life (U.S. and Iraqi) from a full scale war (not to mention the aftermath) demands a real return on that investment.

[joe]

Andrew, I'm all for "getting the ball rolling." I'm even more in favor of ending our efforts to stop that ball from rolling (like propping up the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan. But there are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and this was handled with the dexterity of a nerve damaged toddler.

I always considered the question of invading Iraq to be a close call. I actually share some - some - of the beliefs propounded by PNAC. But the determination to do this thing without international legitimacy, without exhausing other, better options, and without putting in the hard work of developing a viable resistance demonstrated to me that 1) the Bushies running this operation can't be trusted to be honest, decent, or competant, and 2) the invasion as they carried it off is likely to make things worse, not better.

Not every change that can be wrought by military action is a step forward, or ever the preparation for a step forward. We just made it impossible for a liberal democratic movement to have legitimacy among the Iraqis, while giving the most illiberal tyrannical elements a target. At great expense, and to the detriment of other important security needs.