[lmr]

I sincerely doubt the aim here is to implement barbarism as you have suggested. We aren’t going to have public stonings, slavery or ‘death for apostates’ because of these rulings, nor is any of this ‘picking and choosing’ parts to allow in to the constitutional law system. As I was led to believe by legal scholars here on Free Republic who can explain this better than I, none of this was out of line with established law and precedent, but this still doesn’t stop the ‘mandatory female circumcision for your daughter’ types out there from spreading their fear or from suggesting that I would be defending such practices by not buying in to their reasoning.

[livius]

It is permitted to use any law you want in the abitration of certain matters, often things such as contracts (as long as ultimately, it does not violate US law - for example, you couldn’t enter into a contract to sell yourself or anybody else into slavery). Jewish law is sometimes permitted for the resolution of certain matters in the Orthodox Jewish community, for example.

However, the judge does not decide it on the basis of Jewish law; the arbitrator (often a rabbi or Jewish legal scholar) is responsible for working out the agreement, and the courts simply have to make sure that it’s not contrary to US law.

In theory, this could be done in some Muslim legal situations: for example, arbitration of a contract entered into between two Muslims.

But it’s a very limited area, because the reality is that Islamic law is that of a fully developed theocracy where the religious law and the civil law are one and the same and where it covers all aspects of life and is even meant to have legal effect on non-Muslims living within the area where it is practiced. While Jewish law might have ended up this way, because of external circumstances and its internal dynamic, it didn’t, and the development of our institutions in our civil law owes much to Jewish scholars as they thought about this issue.

Aside from the fact that Jewish law no longer orders the stoning of adulterers, etc., it is also nowhere near as comprehensive and does not violate fundamental human rights as does Islamic law in many areas.

Sharia is a competing and conflicting legal system with respect to US law, and except for the very narrow area of arbitration of agreements and certain property disputes, should not be accepted in our courts and certainly should not be decided by our judges. Furthermore, its application in Islamic immigrant communities should be strictly forbidden, because it conflicts with US law and with the Constitution and violates constitutionally protected natural human rights.

[healy61]

You have been around too long to have “been lead to believe by legal scholars” anything. ???

[bdfromlv]

The precedence of the established law is that they can practice whatever they want in their respective communities to do to one another by whatever legal system they choose by sharia or Odens law or whatever voodoo priestess says but when dealing out side of their communities they have to follow the rule of our law as our constitution states which is something that sharia is trying to become the rule not the practice.

[bdfromlv]

Also what part of barbarism do you think is all right. What part don't we have in our legal system or what new aspects of problem solving can we gain or improve from the (WORD of G-D known as KORANIC LAW) The stated punishments in Sharia are from G-D. not from your lame legal scholars and humans. Female circumcision is a cultural thing only done by groups that want their breeders to not be sluts like kufir western women.