James M. Arlandson: Thirty Shariah Laws That Are Bad For All Societies

Islamic nations today still seek to impose this second-class religion tax.

Back-up articles: Jihad and Qital and The Quran and the Sword

9. Slavery is allowed.

It is true that freeing slaves was done in original Islam (Quran 5:89 and 24:33), and the Quran says to be kind to slaves (Quran 4:36), but that is not the entire story.

In addition to those verses, Quran 4:24, 23:1-7; 33:52 allow the institution. Muhammad owned slaves, even one who was black (so says a sacred tradition). He was militarily and politically powerful during his later life in Medina, but he never abolished slavery as an institution.

Officially, Islamic nations have outlawed slavery (Article 11, which is still based on shariah). That proves Islam can reform on at least one matter. Can it reform on the other shariah laws?  And we are told that “no other nation or religious group in the world treated slaves better than the Muslims did.” The back-up article and next two items in this list contradict that claim.

The legacy of slavery still runs deep in Islamic countries even today.

Back-up article: Slavery

10. A male owner may have sex with his slave-women, even prepubescent slave-girls.

See Quran 4:24 and 23:1-7; but it is classical law that permits sex with prepubescent slave girls and describes them as such. Some Muslim religious leaders and others still advocate this practice, taking the slaves as concubines (though sex with prepubescent slave-girls is another matter).

Back-up article: Slavery

11. Slaves may be beaten.

That’s what sacred traditions and classical laws say. See Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and Slavery

Back-up article: Slavery

12. Apostasy laws, including imprisonment or execution, may be imposed on anyone who leaves Islam (an apostate).

Normally this is a prescribed punishment, but it is also political, since it is about freedom of religion. Surprisingly the Quran does not cover punishing apostates down here on earth, though in the afterlife they will be punished. Does this modern Islam can reform old Islam? Quran 4:88-89, 9:73-74, and 9:123, read in that sequence, might deal with earthly punishments. Mainly, however, the sacred traditions and classical law permit harsh treatment for anyone who leaves Islam.

Islamic courts and laws still impose these punishments today, or religious scholars today argue for the law.

Back-up article: Freedom of Religion

13. Blasphemy laws, including imprisonment or execution, may be imposed on critics of Islam or Muhammad.

These verses should be read in historical sequence, for they show that as Islam’s military power increased, the harsh treatment of mockers and critics also intensified, as follows: Quran 3:186, 33:57-61, 9:61-66, 9:73 and 9:123. Sacred traditions, classical laws, and historical Islam are unambiguous about the punishments, recording the people, often their names, who were assassinated for mocking Muhammad and the Quran.

Islamic nations and pockets of Islam in non-Muslim countries still impose these punishments today.

Back-up article: Free Speech

Punishments

14. Drinkers and gamblers may be flogged.

Quran 2:219, 4:43, and 5:90-91, in that sequence, show that Islam gradually prohibited alcohol. The last passage also prohibits “gaming” of sorts. The sacred traditions and classical law discuss punishing gamblers and alcoholics. One tradition says to execute unrepentant alcoholics who do not stop. But usually drinkers were flogged forty or eighty times, with garments, palm branches, or sandals in early Islam.

Islamic countries can impose these punishments today, or religious and legal scholars still argue for it.

Back-up article: Muhammad, the Quran, and Prohibition

15. An injured plaintiff (a private citizen) has the options of forgiving or exacting legal and literal revenge – physical eye for physical eye.

Categorized as qisas (like for like), Quran 5:45 is the main verse (and see 2:187-189). Sacred traditions and classical laws spell out which punishments should be inflicted on which offenses.

Islamic courts, depending on which way the plaintiff directs, today may ask a doctor to surgically remove an eye or disfigure the face or body in some other way. Currently, qisas can be applied to children in Iran.

The whole purpose of courts is to remove the punishment of wrongs and injuries from the plaintiffs who are private citizens; otherwise, blood feuds and personal revenge make punishments uneven – never mind excessive.

Back-up article: Law of Retaliation

16. The hand of a male or female thief may be cut off.

Quran 5:38 imposes this punishment. The traditions and classical law clarify that the theft has to be a valuable item; or mutilation might not be inflicted during a famine,

But amputation is still done today in Islamic countries and argued for by religious leaders or legal scholars to understand it as if it is still valid.

Back-up article: Thieves, Give Muhammad a Hand!

17. A highway robber may be crucified or his alternate hand and foot cut off.

Quran 5:33 permit these punishments. Yes, from that verse other punishments can be inflicted, but the point here is that execution for first-degree murder with aggravated circumstances is one thing, but mutilation and crucifixion is excessive.

Some Islamic nations can still impose them today, or religious and legal scholars still argue for understanding the punishments, as if they are still valid.

Back-up article: Crucifixion and Mutilation

18. Homosexuals may be imprisoned, flogged, or executed.

Surprisingly, the Quran is not all that clear on this subject, but the traditions and classical laws are.

Islamic nations to this day still impose those punishments, and religious leaders still argue for harsh punishments.

Back-up article: Homosexuality

19. Fornicators may be flogged.

Quran 24:2 says this. The hadith and classical laws can impose additional penalties like exile of the male for a year.

Modern Islamic nations still inflict this penalty, and religious or legal scholars still argue for it.

Back-up article: Adultery and Fornication

20. Adulterers may be stoned to death.

The verse that says to stone adulterers to death went missing from the Quran, so says Umar, a companion of Muhammad and the second caliph (ruled 634-644). But he left no doubt that this penalty was done under Muhammad’s direction, and the sacred traditions and classical laws confirm it. But a few rules of evidence must be followed, like confession of the adulterer or four eyewitnesses. In some interpretations of the law, if a woman is raped, but cannot produce four just and pious men who witnessed it, then she is slandering the alleged rapist (or gang rapists) – never mind that the four just and pious eyewitnesses did nothing to stop it, but stood there and watched it.

Some modern Islamic nations still do this, and religious and legal scholars argue for it.

Back-up article: Adultery and Fornication

21. False accusers of sexual crimes may be flogged eighty times.

Quran 24:1-4 speak of corporal punishment for sexual sins. Verse 4 says that if an accuser cannot produce four eyewitnesses to corroborate his accusation, then he will be flogged (see Quran 24:13).

Some modern Islamic nations can still impose the penalty for slander, and religious scholars still argue for it.

Back-up article: Adultery and Fornication

Marital, Domestic, and Women’s Issues

Quran 2:228 and 4:34 states that mankind is superior to womankind in a variety of legal and domestic contexts. Quran 2:223 says wives are fields, and their husbands can go into them whenever and however they like. How does this inferiority work out in the law and society?

22. A woman inherits half what a man does.

Quran 4:11 says it, and the hadith (traditions) and classical law confirm it.

Modern Islamic nations still do this, and religious leaders still argue for it.

Back-up article: Women’s Status and Roles

23. A woman’s testimony in a court of law counts half of a man’s testimony, since she might “forget.”

Quran 2:282 says it in the context of business law. But the hadith (traditions) explains that women’s minds are deficient; classical law expands this curtailment to other areas than business.

Modern Islamic nations still do this, and religious scholars still argue for it.

Back-up article: Women’s Status and Roles

24. A man may legally and irrevocably divorce his wife, outside of a court of law, by correctly pronouncing three times “you are divorced.” 

Quran 2:229 says this, and the traditions and classical law explain and confirm it. A judge in a modern Islamic country will ensure that the husband did not speak from a fit of irrational rage (anger is okay) or intoxication, for example. Then the court will validate the divorce, not daring to overturn it, since the Quran says so.

Sometimes this homemade and irrevocable divorce produces a lot of regret in the couple and manipulation from the husband in Islam today.

Back-up article: Divorce and Remarriage

25. A wife may remarry her ex-husband if and only if she marries another man, has sex with him, and then this second man divorces her.

Quran 2:230 says this, and the traditions and classical law confirm it. Supposedly, this rule is designed to prevent easy divorce (see the previous point), but it produces a lot of pain, in Muslims today.

Back-up article: Divorce and Remarriage

26. Husbands may hit their wives.

Quran 4:34 says it, and the traditions and classical law confirm it. There is a sequence of steps a husband follows before he can hit her, but not surprisingly this rule creates all sorts of abuse and confusion in Islamic society today.

Back-up article: Domestic Violence

27. A man may be polygamous with up to four wives.

Quran 4:3 (and 33:50-52) allow this, but only if a man can take care of them. The traditions and classical law confirm it. Modern Muslims still push for this old marital arrangement even in the USA, and many Islamic nations still allow it. But some Muslims are fighting polygamy. The hadith (traditions) paints a picture of Muhammad’s household that was full of strife between the wives.

Back-up article: Polygamy

28. A man may simply get rid of one of his “undesirable” wives.

Quran 4:128 says this. The traditions say about the verse that the wife whom Muhammad wanted to get rid of was “huge” and “fat.” She gave up her turn to his favorite girl-bride Aisha. He kept the corpulent wife. There is heartbreak in Islam today.

Back-up article: Polygamy

29. A mature man may marry a prepubescent girl.

Quran 65:1-4, particularly verse 4, assumes, but does not command, the practice. The hadith says Aisha was six years old when she was engaged to Muhammad (he was in his fifties), and their marriage was consummated when she was nine. The hadith indicate she was prepubescent at nine. She never did bear him any children. Classical law says a father may give away his prepubescent daughter, but she also has a few rights.  

Officially many Islamic nations have raised the legal marriage age, but pockets in the Islamic world still follow this old custom. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia okays marriage to ten-year-old girls. Work is still needed to be done for the rights of girl brides, particularly for their sexual health.

Back-up article: Marriage to Prepubescent Girls

30. A woman must wear a head covering and maybe a facial veil, according to sound traditions and authoritative classical law.

Quran 24:31, 33:53 and 33:59 are not as clear about the veil as one might first think. The verses say to dress modestly, but should the head be covered or just the neckline? What about the face (except the eyes)? Thus, modern Muslims are now in a big debate over the veil. However, the traditions and classical law are clearer than the Quran: the veil over the face (except the eyes).

Back-up article: Veils

Conclusion

Compiling this list would not have been necessary if modern Muslim religious leaders and jurists argued that all of those laws have expiration dates – back in the seventh century. Instead, they are eager to impose those archaic laws today (with the exceptions duly noted as the list went along). They believe all of the Quran is universally and timelessly good.

However, most of the public, since 9/11 and the countless posts about Islam since then, are laughing at Islam behind its back. The traditionalists, whom we have kept track of in the series, appear very foolish, when they defend the thirty rules. Do they really intend to tell us to our faces that the thirty laws should be imposed on all of humanity for its own good? Apparently so. But you traditionalists are gradually becoming a laughingstock, in the eyes of most people.

Most people. Why not all?

The allies of the traditionalists in the Western world and elsewhere seem oblivious to the dangers built into the laws.

Are all of these laws on the brink of being imposed on the West, by the next day? No, but many of them, especially the ones about marriage and family, can gradually be lobbied for and slowly make their way into our culture and legal system and advocated in school curricula, in the name of multiculturalism.

But will modern Islam reform old Islam? Will the Western elites encourage reform, or do they believe Islam is fine the way it is? Rather than they and traditionalists defending the thirty laws and calling critics “Islamophobes,” traditionalists and their allies should work hard to reform the laws or, better yet, set them aside completely.

For example, the Quran and traditions, classical law, and Islamic history promote slavery, but modern Muslim states have outlawed it – officially (see nos. 9, 10, 11, above). This prohibition shows that modern Islam can improve on original Islam – the one that Muhammad preached and practiced. Slavery was done throughout the world in the old days; that’s the (outdated) historical context. Original Islam conformed to it. Can modern Muslim scholars recognize that all of the other laws in this list were part of the same obsolete historical context and throw out these archaic laws?

In the meantime, while we wait patiently for this Islamic Reformation and Modernization (if it happens), the Western elites may want to remember three universal rights that are self-evident, according to the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The hallmarks of those three rights are, among other things, freedom of conscience to follow a religion of one’s choice (or no religion at all) without being harassed. Freedom of speech – even the kind that criticizes the Quran and Muhammad – are signs that democracy and justice have taken root. Equality before the law for both sexes also defines the three universal rights.

However, all of those thirty laws suppress everyone’s highest quality of life before the law and in society; they suppress our maximum liberty; and they suppress individual pursuit of happiness as he or she defines it.

Finally, a religious utopia which is imposed from the top down in Islam, which harshly punishes sins or crimes by disfigurement or mutilation or flogging, and which denies the basic human dignity of the female sex, is the wrong direction for modern society.

Over the centuries, and after many mistakes, the West has learned from its mistakes and is still learning. Islamic leaders say the West is arrogant. Maybe sometimes it is. But Islam’s refusal to learn from the West is also a sign of arrogance. Islam must bend to us, not we to it. Islam is behind the times.

Tolerance of religions in their harmless aspects, like prayer, is one thing, but capitulation to their civilly and socially oppressive parts is another. Let’s preserve our cultural and legal advancements without compromise. Let’s keep religion and the state (government) separate.

Not one word, phrase, or clause of these thirty shariah laws and even the Five Pillars should ever enter our legal system, legislation, policy formulations, or school curricula.

Most of all, let’s keep (or return) to our three universal and foundational rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of (individual) happiness.[1]