The ground rules are in place for the newly-elected Islamic Institute of Civil Justice to undertake arbitration and mediation of civil disputes among Muslims according to Islamic values, says Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. The Institute's goal is to apply Muslim law to the extent possible under Canadian law. Participation in arbitration will be voluntary.
"Most people are sitting back and watching to see what they're trying to do," says Faisal Kutty, general counsel for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association. "If it's just civil law, then it's great."
But, he adds, "Islamic law is being exploited in many countries to oppress women and minorities. If that's the kind of interpretation they want to bring to it, there wouldn't be much support."
Most important, arbitration decisions are binding, and do not have to be incorporated by court order. Thus arbitrated decisions, by choice of the parties involved, may not reach the courts and may be carried out solely according to Islamic law.
Also, the process may not always be voluntary. Parties may be persuaded to participate in arbitrated decisions based on religious arguments.
"This is really a backdoor approach by fundamentalists to bring in traditional Islamic law in a country where they otherwise can't," Zuhair Kashmeri of the Muslim Canadian Congress told the Toronto Sun.
Back to TopMore than 100 people came to a lecture hall in the Lash Miller building last Thursday to hear the case for Shariah-based arbitration in Canadian courts. The lecture was organized by the Outreach Committee of the Muslim Students' Association and aimed to answer questions about Shariah law-muslim law, based on the Koran-and the role of faith-based arbitration in Canada's secular society.
The issue of Shariah law in Canada has sparked a media sensation across the country, but has also polarized the 700,000-strong Muslim community.
The controversy stems from the horrific human rights records of some of the world's Islamic courtsbrutal treatment of women under such systems.
But supporters of Islamic arbitration say that those regimes misuse Shariah for political reasons and violate a basic tenet of Islamic law: social justice. Thursday's talk, therefore, was meant to assuage some of the serious concerns that remain among the still-skeptical public.
Shariah supporters believe that Canada's system of laws would perfectly complement a proper implementation of Islamic law.
"We live in Canada," said Shahina Siddiqui, a social worker from Winnipeg who spoke first. "We have social justice, which is a pre-requisite for Shariah to work."
Siddiqui's speech was focused on discussing and countering the most contentious issues in Shariah such as inheritance, child custody, capital punishment, and women's rights. With 20 years of experience as a social worker and her involvement in Islamic-based mediation, she feels that Shariah law is in fact "reasonable, flexible, [and] time- and content-sensitive".
The second speaker, Faisal Kutty, a prominent lawyer in Toronto, talked about the history of arbitration in Ontario.
Currently, Ontario law allows for arbitration through the Ontario Arbitration Act of 1991. Based on the Arbitration Act, Jewish, Catholic and Aboriginal citizens have already implemented and used faith-based arbitration courts-legally binding agreements hammered out by both parties in partnership with religious authorities-in which civil disputes over business, property, and divorce are dealt with. The success of these faith-based arbitration courts was the reason why individuals in the Muslim community introduced the idea of Islamic-based arbitration.
Back to TopShariah for Ontario Muslims?
SALIM MANSUR, For the London Free Press
Former NDP attorney general Marion Boyd is reviewing a bid to introduce Islamic faith-based law to settle Muslim family legal disputes. But Salim Mansur warns women and children would be vulnerable under such religion-founded rulings.
The controversy surrounding the use of Shariah, or Islamic law in settling Muslim family disputes under the 1991 Arbitration Act in Ontario will not likely cease, regardless of which way the provincial Liberal government moves on the matter.
Premier Dalton McGuinty has appointed Marion Boyd, the former attorney general in Bob Rae's NDP government, to review the act and advise Queen's Park on how to proceed with the request to incorporate Shariah into the arbitration process.
Christians and Orthodox Jews are already permitted to voluntarily seek faith-based arbitration under the act, so rejecting the request for Muslims seeking similar process would be seen as discriminatory.
This is Boyd's dilemma, and she will require the wisdom of Solomon to meet the request and quell the controversy.
The Arbitration Act was one of Boyd's NDP legislative achievements, designed in part to speed the process of civil litigation and reduce pressures on the Ontario court system.
Since the act opened the door to faith-based arbitration, it was only a matter of time before a Muslim group would request that those provisions be extended to them.
That Muslim group is the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, based in Toronto, and its lawyer is Mumtaz Ali. He wants Muslim personal law, or those aspects of Shariah dealing with family matters, recognized for arbitrating family disputes brought by Muslims to a tribunal, organized under the provisions of the act.
But it has opened a hornet's nest, and puts to the test not only the act, but also values by which Canadian society is defined as multicultural.
The opponents to Ali's request are not primarily non-Muslims.
The government would have found it easy to dismiss their arguments, however persuasive they might be, on the grounds that denying Muslims faith-based arbitration would be discriminatory.
It is the opposition coming from the Muslim community that has the government in a quandary. The obvious question is why.
For Muslims, the Qur'an is the sacred text, believed to be the word of God revealed to the Prophet Mohammed over a period of time.
The Qur'an states, "Obey God and His Prophet," and in this simple formulation lies the essence of Shariah.
Shariah means, in its original sense, "the path leading to water," hence the road, in Qur'anic usage, to the source of life.
In religious terms, it came to mean the path to good life as directed and regulated by the Qur'an.
But there is no uniform opinion among Muslims on how Shariah is to be understood, interpreted or applied.
Traditional religious authorities in Islam, beginning in the eighth century, viewed law as the revealed will of God preceding society and state and, thereby, subordinating politics to law.
Historical reality, however, was different, with politics invariably shaping Islamic law.
The discourse on Shariah is vast and complex. But the issue that is contentious is rather simple.
While religiously binding precepts are in the Qur'an, the task of identifying them, explaining them and laying down the method for their application is a human enterprise, constrained by its limitations.
The difficulty was partly resolved with the development of a system to narrate how the Prophet conducted human affairs within the guidance provided by the Qur'an.
Prophetic example was deemed exemplary and binding.
Yet the problem persists, since fallible human minds derive precepts and their meanings from the Qur'an, or as they narrate the prophetic conduct.
Moreover, Muslims became politically divided early in their history, and these divisions oriented their respective understandings of Shariah and its application.
Traditional Muslim religious scholarship asserted Shariah is not bound by time and space.
A consensus emerged among Muslim jurists in the 10th century that since Shariah was fully derived and explained, and the creative force of scholarship was exhausted, there was no further room for interpretation. Islamic law in the traditionalist view became a closed system.
In modern times, as Muslims were influenced by Europe's new philosophy and science, this closed system began to be questioned. Muslim modernists contended Shariah required understanding in the context of time and circumstances.
This debate remains unresolved.
Muslim-majority states emerging after colonialism did not uniformly adopt Shariah as the basis of their legal system.
In matters of finance, public administration, criminal law and international law, secular-based Western laws have been followed -- with some amendments for local conditions.
It is in the area of family law -- on matters relating to marriage, divorce, inheritance and the status of women -- that Shariah regulations are followed. But even in these matters there is no uniformity, either in interpretation or in application.
The treatment of women in Muslim societies has received the most intensive scrutiny. Irrespective of how Qur'anic precepts relating to women are interpreted and explained, the reality is deplorable and indefensible.
It is the status of women that most strikingly sets Muslim societies apart from the West. It is Muslim women in Ontario, and the rest of Canada, who are horrified by the implications of recognizing Shariah as the basis for settling disputes within their families.
The Canadian Council of Muslim Women has presented briefs to Boyd, expressing profound reservations about the Shariah proposal.
The council, and other Muslims, are not convinced by assurances Shariah law must be consistent with provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The key reason for that concern is a lack of trust.
Muslims who insist on applying Shariah, declaring those who do not abide by it are not good Muslims, tend toward a literalism in the reading of the Qur'an.
This is the slippery slope between the moderation of Islamic traditionalism and the sort of fundamentalism whose extreme expressions are to be found in Saudi Arabia and the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.
Muslims opposing introduction of Shariah in Ontario are not driven by fear of witnessing in Canada the depraved excesses of the Taliban. This is a red herring.
The concerns are real, primarily because Muslim women and children are vulnerable to decisions cast in religious terms, where their rights may be vitiated within the Canadian setting.
The reason is a code of silence practised by most Muslims for fear of becoming ostracized within a community that stresses unspoken loyalty to religious leadership.
Those Muslims, particularly women, found in Canada a freedom to practise their faith as they thought appropriate, and a refuge from conditions where abuse of power is sanctioned by religion.
Muslim opponents to the Shariah law proposal are concerned that, should the government concede to Ali's request, it would entrench the authority of those Muslims on matters where Muslims themselves remain deeply divided.
Ali contends Shariah, mediated through the Canadian system of law, would be a win-win situation for Muslims and Canadians. Those Muslims who want faith-based arbitration would not be denied Shariah, and Canada would extend the meaning of multiculturalism by demonstrating its unique capacity to evolve as an inclusive society.
Between proponents of Shariah and concerns expressed by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, the weight of evidence from Muslim societies gives greater credence to the council.
The question the government must answer is how well prepared is the Canadian system of law to face an inevitable collision, and its consequences, with a system of law that insists its supremacy is based on extra-human origin?
Back to TopMuslims protest shariah law proposal
Group argues religion has no place in disputes, divorce
Friday, August 27, 2004
Ontario risks ghettoizing Muslim Canadians if it accepts the use of Islamic shariah law as a basis for settling family disputes and divorces, a Canadian Muslim organization argued last night.
Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said the use of religious law to settle legal matters is "repugnant" and unconstitutional because anyone who disagrees with a decision -- however unfair or misguided -- risks being labelled a traitor to the faith.
"By allowing religiosity to enter the legal system, we are slipping back to the days of [former premier Maurice] Duplessis in Quebec, where for decades it was the Catholic Church that determined that children would spy on their parents for not being good Catholics, and what entertainment there was, and what fashions were allowed," Mr. Fatah said in an interview.
He made his submissions last night to Marion Boyd, the former NDP attorney-general of Ontario, who is due to report to the government next month on whether the use of shariah law conforms to Canadian law and human rights codes. Although it is not yet formally approved, religious arbitration of family disputes has been tolerated, even encouraged by the courts as a legal alternative, since the Arbitration Act was passed in 1991.
To accept shariah law, Mr. Fatah said in his presentation, would be to play into the hands of racists and extremists, both Muslim and not, who want Muslims to occupy their own corner of society, with little or no contact with the mainstream.
"It is racist, in one way, in that 90% of the community in Canada will not be affected, therefore 90% of the community can say to the Muslim community, 'Oh, you can go to that corner of yours and sort out your own issues.' That's how they dealt with the Jewish ghettos in Europe before the Second World War, and nobody really cared.
"Racism is not just when somebody hurts me, but racism is also when somebody tolerates my mistakes....This is the racism of lower expectations," he said.
Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress -- a separate organization -- called the objections "nonsense," and said shariah arbitration is an experiment that deserves a chance to succeed." If it fails to provide fair judgments, it will die a natural death," he said.
He said there are only a handful of scholars in Canada who are fully trained in interpreting and applying shariah law -- and perhaps as few as one -- but that this is reason to promote the use of shariah, not abandon it.
Ms. Boyd's review, which began at the request of Premier Dalton McGuinty in June, was prompted by the announcement of another Muslim group, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice, that they would provide shariah arbitrators to parties who wanted them, just as Jewish and Christian groups do using their own religious texts or customs. Dr. Elmasry acknowledged that these arbitrators do not always have a full shariah education, but said fairness is ensured by oversight from the community. The leader of the IICJ, Syed Mumtaz Ali, did not return calls yesterday.
The arbitrators "use gut feeling, they use common sense, and in many cases they are successful," in that their decisions are not appealed to a court or overturned, Dr. Elmasry said. There are other advantages, he said: It takes a burden off civil courts and is generally cheaper for all the parties involved.
But Homa Arjomand, who leads a petition against shariah law in Ontario, said there is a culture of intimidation in Muslim communities that prevents women from speaking their mind or standing up to their husbands. She said the arbitration process is also so secretive and immune to oversight that it amounts to an abdication of the courts' responsibility.
Decisions of arbitrators may not be appealed, but they must conform to Canadian law, and they may be overturned by a court.
"It's like hiding the dirt under the carpet," Ms. Arjomand said.
She said shariah arbitrators should be imprisoned as if they were drug dealers because both do great harm to society. "These arbitrators, to me, are harming people. The safety of these women is jeopardized," she said.
Mr. Fatah argued in his presentation last night that the whole idea of arbitrating family disputes might be illegal because the Arbitration Act does not even give arbitrators the legal authority to settle matters of property, children or inheritance. He suggested this question ought to be settled by the Ontario Court of Appeal. What is more, he argued, shariah law is not a codified body of rules, but rather a fluid body of scholarship that is "antithetical to the Canadian Constitution and values."
"We don't have a codified law, and we're asking quasi-judicial tribunals to use such law. This is putting the cart before the horse," Mr. Fatah said.
Back to Topwebsite: www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/
The Muslim Canadian Congress is a grassroots organization that provides a voice to Muslims who are not represented by existing organizations; organizations that are either sectarian or ethnocentric, largely authoritarian, and influenced by a fear of modernity and an aversion to joy.
Members of the Muslim Canadian Congress come from all parts of the world with diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. We are proud of our Muslim heritage and the great contribution of Islam to human civilization. As Muslim Canadians we believe in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Canadian constitution as our guiding principles.
The Muslim Canadian Congress looks to the future, and not to the past for the best days of the Muslim community; a community that will fully integrate and participate with other Canadians to build a country that is a beacon of hope, peace, prosperity and joy for the rest of the world.
We are an organization open to all Muslims who agree with our mission statement. We define a Muslim as any person who identifies himself or herself as a Muslim.
The MCC is a secular organization that will work to create a safe space and environment for all Muslims who are opposed to any form of theocracy.
As Muslims we believe in a progressive, liberal, pluralistic, democratic, and secular society where everyone has the freedom of religion. We want our communities to be equal and active contributors and participants in the development of a just, democratic, and equitable society in Canada.
We believe in the separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy. We feel such a separation is a necessary pre-requisite to building democratic societies, where religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are accepted as equal citizens enjoying full dignity and human rights enunciated in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We believe that fanaticism and extremism within the Muslim community is a major challenge to all of us. We stand opposed to the extremists and will present the more humane and tolerant face of our community.
We oppose gender apartheid that is practiced in parts of our community, and believe it is contrary to the equity among men and women enshrined in Islam. We believe that Muslim men and women should work together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in their effort to rejuvenate our community.
We envision Canada as a society with strong and well-funded public institutions in the health, education and social services sectors. We feel these public institutions are the foundation and pre-requisite for an enterprising and vibrant private sector.
We will work for a more progressive, anti-racist and accessible immigration policy in Canada; a policy that recognizes the contributions of immigrants as vital assets of society and essential for the survival of the country.
We hope to build a Canada where personal initiative and creativity are celebrated and rewarded, but not at the cost of our collective social conscience and an abandonment of our responsibility towards the broader community.
We look forward to building communities free from the ravages of racism, intolerance, ignorance, disease, and poverty, and where religion becomes a force of joy, enlightenment, democracy, peace and bridge-building, rather than hate, oppression, war and division.
We support the aspirations and dreams of the peoples of the developing countries throughout the world.; a dream of dignity, democracy, freedom from poverty and political oppression, and a just and lasting peace. To achieve this and resist the steady re-colonization of the developing world, we will work closely with like-minded groups in building an anti-imperialist movement.
We recognize the reality of globalization, but are concerned at its domination by transnational corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens. We hope to work closely with international movements to build on the positive aspects of globalization while opposing corporate globalization, which undermines sovereign democratic governments.
Back to TopYasmin Ratansi - Canada's First Muslim Woman MP
Tarek Fatah writes how the media missed the story
The recent federal elections will be remembered for a number of seminal events: the first husband and wife team in the Commons, the first quadriplegic MP, the first Sikh woman member of Parliament, and of course the first African-immigrant MP from Quebec.
The national media covered these developments in detail, and today Mr. and Mrs. Grewal from B.C., Dr. Ruby Dhalla from Ontario, Steven Fletcher from Manitoba, and Maka Kotto from Quebec are household names.
Lost in these accomplishments was another first for Canada. It was the election of Canada's first Muslim woman member of Parliament - Yasmin Ratansi from the Toronto riding of Don Valley East. Her achievement went completely unnoticed.
The question is this: How could the national media miss such a historic milestone for Canada's 600,000-strong Muslim community?
After all, Ms. Ratansi was not a new kid on the block. She first contested a federal election in 1988, losing narrowly to Alan Redway. Describing herself as "a business person with a strong social conscience," Ms. Ratansi persevered for more than 15 years to accomplish her dream of entering Canada's House of Commons.
It was a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering that Ms. Ratansi came to Canada from Tanzania as a young immigrant. She is a role model not just for Muslims, but all immigrants who decide to make this country our home.
One can perhaps understand the media not covering this development. Maybe it was simply an innocent oversight. How do we explain the reaction of traditional Muslim organizations that refused to acknowledge Ms. Ratansi's accomplishment?
From the Canadian Islamic Congress to CAIR-Canada, from MuslimVote.ca to Radio Islam, there was not a word, either prior to, or after June 29, about the campaign of Ms. Ratansi.
I believe that both the media and the traditional Muslim organizations are guilty of seeing Canada's Muslim community through the prism of social conservatism.
The search for the authentic Muslim has forced reporters and editors to look for women in head covers and men in beards. When a Muslim does not fit that stereotype, he or she is simply discarded as not a genuine Muslim.
Traditional Muslim organizations are particularly guilty of creating and sustaining this stereotype. Just because Ms. Ratansi does not cover her head, she did not fit their criteria for a good Muslim woman, and was therefore not on their list of Muslim candidates.
However, the story does not end here. There is a strong sectarian streak in how these traditional Muslim organizations determine who qualifies to be a Muslim and who does not.
In the weeks leading up to the election, many Muslim organizations published a list of Muslim candidates running for Parliament. Conspicuous by their absence on these lists were the names of Liberal Yasmin Ratansi and sitting Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer. They were ignored because they belong to the Ismaili sect of Islam and thus are not considered worthy of the label Muslim.
The divisive and sectarian attitude of the traditional Muslim leadership is not just devoted to picking and choosing who they consider good Muslims or bad Muslims. They have now turned their attention to Muslim culture and customs and are judging good Muslim culture and bad Muslim culture with the media in tow.
Next month, a group of conservative Muslims has organized what they call a MuslimFest, ostensibly to celebrate Muslim art, music and painting. However, the organizers have barred all female performers and rejected the use of the sitar and guitar. They have also forbidden any paintings depicting the human face.
Organizers of the MuslimFest claim that all festivity at this event will be Sharia-compliant. Imagine a Muslim Festival where a Muslim icon like Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan would be barred from performing; where Om Kolthoum would not be allowed to sing and where Mughal miniatures would be considered satanic.
Sad, but this is what will happen. Canada's news media is complicit in covering the most conservative Muslims in Canada. Unintentionally, perhaps, they have neglected the vast, silent majority of Muslims who do not wear beards, do not cover their heads and who do not follow the direction of imams and self-styled leaders in determining their politics.
In their search for genuine Muslims who carried credentials of authenticity by the conservative leadership, the media overlooked Ms. Ratansi, and failed to give her the credit she so rightly deserves as a torchbearer for Muslims in Canada.
Tarek Fatah is host of the weekly Vision TV show The Muslim Chronicle and a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
Back to TopSpeaking for Muslims: A new group stirs the pot
By MARINA JIMENEZ
Saturday, September 20, 2003
The smell of chipati, kofta curry meatballs, biryani rice and Lebanese tabouli wafts through Tarek Fatah's airy, three-storey downtown Toronto duplex. He urges his guests to help themselves.
"Food. Food is key in our organization. We like to eat," says Mr. Fatah, the host of a television program called The Muslim Chronicle and of tonight's meeting.
Seated around his polished dining-room table are a Marxist accountant in his 60s, a 34-year-old Palestinian PhD student, a Bangoli who runs a trendy Toronto fusion restaurant, and several lawyers, including a young woman in fashionable hip-hugging trousers.
"There are Sufis, Sunnis, Shias and also Sushis in our group," says Mr. Fatah, pointing to his daughter, Natasha, with a chortle. "She is half Sunni, half Shia, so I call her a Sushi." Natasha, a 26-year-old journalism student, nods indulgently at her father.
Welcome to the weekly gathering of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), a new Toronto-based group with about 100 members across the country (although to date no president) -- and one not everyone in the Muslim-Canadian community is comfortable with.
They are not here tonight to discuss the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed or the opening of an Islamic school. Instead, this association of journalists, engineers, students and others stands for causes not commonly associated with Muslim activists -- aboriginal rights, secular schools, civil liberties and the separation of religion and the state.
They are together as Muslims, but religion is not their raison d'ętre. They campaigned against the war in Iraq, marched in a recent Labour Day Parade, and were the first group to hold a press conference to denounce the arrest in Toronto of 21 Pakistanis on allegations of terrorism. It was this case -- along with the recent arrest in Florida of two moderate Toronto imams -- that catapulted the group into the public limelight.
Yet the MCC doesn't campaign only for the civil liberties of Muslims -- it also showed solidarity with William Sampson, who says he was tortured in a prison in Saudi Arabia, and has called for reform in the desert kingdom. "We hold the Canadian Charter of Rights as defining Canadian citizenship," says Raheel Raza, a media consultant. "We wish countries in the Muslim world would adopt the Charter of Rights. This is what Canada has to offer the world."
The meeting focuses on how to help the imprisoned Pakistanis, who will probably be deported for immigration violations. There is also discussion of an upcoming speaker, Jeffrey Lang, an American professor and former atheist who converted to Islam.
"Some of our members pray five times a day. Some haven't prayed in five years. We are comfortable with both narratives," says Ms. Raza, who is devout herself but does not wear a hijab.
While it illustrates the increasing sophistication and ethnic diversity of Canada's Muslim community, the MCC has also exposed a fissure in the community, one that may culminate in a public legal battle. The dispute is ostensibly over intellectual property, but at its root is also a clash of ideas.
The Canadian Islamic Congress, the most high-profile Muslim association in the country, sent out a communiqué this week objecting to the name of the new group, saying it is so similar to the CIC's that it infringes on the group's reputation. National president Mohamed Elmasry says his congress "will seek an injunction if necessary. They are the aggressors in the sense that our name has been in the public domain first."
Mr. Elmasry, a professor of computer engineering at the University of Waterloo, insists that he objects only to the MCC's chosen name. Other observers say the argument is about more than nomenclature. It is about ideology and a quest for control: Just who speaks for the Islamic community in Canada?
Muslims now represent 2 per cent of the Canadian population. Many mosques are still divided along ethnic lines and struggling with the need to adapt to Canadian life while staying true to their faith. Some younger Muslims such as Amina Sherazee, a civil-rights lawyer, and Hanadi Loubani, a Palestinian doctoral student, joined the MCC because they didn't feel that the CIC or the Canadian chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations spoke to them.
Abdel Aziz Sachedina, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, says Canadian reformist Muslims may be more daring than their American counterparts, and more willing to speak out, despite their small numbers.
"There are two trends in the Canadian community. One wants change to come, and one wants to preserve the authenticity and religiosity of Islam," says Prof. Sachedina, who used to teach at the University of Waterloo and has studied the community for three decades. "The CIC has the traditional leadership and the imams as a source of legitimacy. The MCC doesn't have this, they are more modernist and reformist."
The mission of the CIC is largely faith-based: To spread the teachings of Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims; to call Muslims and non-Muslims to Islam; to encourage study of the Islamic faith; to operate Islamic schools; and to facilitate an understanding of important social issues from an Islamic perspective.
The MCC, on the other hand, is inspired by the teachings of the Koran, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act. The group professes to "oppose the gender apartheid that is practised in parts of our community, and believe it is contrary to the equity among men and women enshrined in Islam. . . . We believe that fanaticism and extremism within the Muslim community is a major challenge to all of us."
The MCC formed after the terrorist hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001. It wanted to portray another kind of Muslim, who wasn't necessarily covered in a hijab or kneeling on a prayer mat.
"The Muslim identity was hijacked after 9/11, by both the U.S., which associated Islam with terrorism, and by the fundamentalist Muslims," Ms. Loubani says. "We criticize attempts to impose conservative Islam."
Ms. Raza says introspection and self-criticism are part of the group's mission. She and other members of the MCC recently wrote an article bemoaning the fact that imams were using weddings to put forward their own personal views: "Weddings are not meant to be dark and dreary as some dysfunctional mullahs indicate, when they pose themselves as reformers, exhorting misogynist theories supported by useless traditions and ranting about 'Western corruption,' " they wrote in the Toronto Star.
To Prof. Elmasry, this is Muslim-bashing: "This is anti-Islam rhetoric . . . which does not lead to progress in our community. You have to reform from within," he says. The views of the MCC are not shared by the majority in the community, he adds, although they are a "respected minority."
Prof. Elmasry has spoken out in newspaper opinion pages and elsewhere on same-sex marriage, child poverty and homelessness, and on various panels representing the Muslim point of view. "It is up to the community to judge whose views benefit the community and the public at large," he says.
In Mr. Fatah's spacious living room, the meeting of the Muslim Canadian Congress is just finishing up, over rasmalai, Bangladeshi sweets and Indian tea. The members do not want to get drawn into a dispute about their association's name. They have no plans to change it. In fact, they would welcome other groups with the words congress and Muslim in their titles.
"We are not in competition with anyone," Mr. Fatah says. "We believe in Islam as a progressive, liberal, pluralistic and democratic religion."
Adds Amina Sherazee, a civil-rights lawyer: "The Muslim world is often under assault. There is plenty of work to go around."
Marina Jimenez is a senior feature writer for The Globe and Mail.
Back to TopSubmissions by Muslim Canadian Congress
Review of Arbitration Process by Marion Boyd
The Muslim Canadian Congress is a national organization that provides a voice to progressive Muslims who are not represented by existing organizations. The Muslim Canadian Congress members reject organizations and a distorted view of Islam that is either sectarian, ethnocentric, authoritarian, and influenced by a fear of modernity.
Members of the Muslim Canadian Congress are proud of their Muslim heritage and the great contribution of Islam to human civilization. As Muslim Canadians, when it comes to rights and responsibilities, we believe in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Canadian constitution as our guiding principles.
The Muslim Canadian Congress is a secular organization that works to create a safe space and environment for all Muslims who are opposed to any form of theocracy. We believe in the separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy. We feel such a separation is a necessary prerequisite to building democratic societies. Societies where religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are accepted as equal citizens enjoying full dignity and human rights enunciated in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Muslim Canadian Congress respectfully submits:
1. that the Arbitration Act does not cover family disputes being resolved within its parameters. Furthermore, that the Family Law Act and the other pieces of legislation covering family law jurisdiction are the sole, exclusive and comprehensive scheme for resolving all family law matters touching on relationships between spouses and their children, including estate and inheritances by spouses and children. It is therefore our position that none of these matters can be dealt with under the Arbitration Act.
2. that if indeed the government takes the position, as it seems to be doing, that the Arbitration Act can deal with these matters, then the MCC further takes the position that, to that extent, the Arbitration Act is unconstitutional and of no force and effect in that:
a. It breaches the rights contained in sections 2, 7, and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada with respect to any differential treatment not specifically set out in the Constitution Act, 1867;
b. Breaches the unwritten constitutional norms enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Succession Reference namely the rule of law, constitutionalism, federalism, and respect for minorities;
c. Breaches even the common law rights to equality of citizenship as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Winner; and
d. Is otherwise repugnant to public policy in the de facto privatization of the legislative function and duty of parliament, which in fact, has been declared as unconstitutional as being the abandonment and abdication of the legislative function of parliament, as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Re Gray and further endorsed by the Supreme Court in Hallett and Carey.
3. In light of the fact that this Act exists and the Government states that there is such statutory and constitutional jurisdiction, and in light of the fact that MCC completely rejects and disagrees, we demand, on behalf of not only Muslim-Canadians, but all other Canadians who defend the rule of law and constitutionalism and equality, that the matter be referred on a reference to the Ontario Court of Appeal pursuant to section 8 of the Courts of Justice Act to determine:
a) Whether the Arbitration Act confers jurisdiction, outside the Family Law Act and other related family law statutes, to determine disputes of property, children, inheritance and estates in the family context.
b) If the Arbitration Act does confer such jurisdiction, whether it is constitutional.
4. With all due respect, if the Government maintains that the Act does confer such jurisdiction, then these consultations are a charade as the Parliament has already spoken and any "report" or opinion to the Attorney General is just that: an opinion.
5. In practical and realistic terms, what began as a demand to introduce "Sharia Law" has now dishonestly mutated into the same thorn by any other name, and is still offensively unacceptable for the following reasons:
a) There is no such thing as a monolithic "Muslim Family/Personal Law" which is just an euphemistically racist way of saying that we will apply the equivalent to "Christian Law" or "Asian Law" or "African Law";
b) It ghettoizes the Muslim community, which otherwise spans five different continents covering 1.3 billion people, in an extensive array of sects, languages, cultures, and customs, all into one second-class compartment in the determination of human and family law rights, which are of public importance and domain;
c) This insidious and discriminatory ghettoization and marginalization, into "out of sight" only plays into:
i) The hands of the extremist political and ideological agenda of a certain sector of Muslim-Canadian proponents of "Muslim Law" that is antithetical to the Canadian Constitution and values; and
ii) Equally into the hands of the reactionary, intolerant and otherwise racist segments of Canadian non-Muslim society who want nothing better than to exclude Muslims from the mainstream;
all of this, behind the dishonest guise of religious tolerance and accommodation.
6. These practical and real objections are not only visible and apprehended by moderate Muslim Canadian members and voices, who adhere to the same rights and responsibilities of all other Canadians regardless of religion or race, but also highlight and focus the legal and constitutional repugnancy of these proposed measures.
7. In our respectful view, any public official body or institution that does not squarely and openly address the racism of these provisions and measures, is complicit in them.
8. Any "arbitration" system ought to be neutral and equally apply to any and all citizens regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. To have a system built on the exact opposite is to defile our Constitutional framework.
It would be extremely dishonest, and derelict of its responsibility for the government of the day to engage in this "consultation" and report with the public, and not refer it to the Court for validity, and expect groups such as the MCC to bring such a challenge.
In light of the above, MCC reiterates its demand that the Provincial Government refer the matter on a reference to the Ontario Court of Appeal pursuant to section 8 of the Courts of Justice Act.
All of which is respectfully submitted this 26th day of August 2004
Rocco Galati B.A., LL.B, LL.M
Counsel for the MCC
GALATI, RODRIGUES & ASSOCIATES
Barristers and Solicitors
Toronto, Ontario
Muslim group opposes sharia law
Argues it does not protect women Islamic body presents case to Boyd
TARANNUM KAMLANI AND NICHOLAS KEUNG
STAFF REPORTERS
Marion Boyd is at the centre of a storm of debate surrounding proposals to use Islamic sharia law in family disputes. Ontario's former attorney-general has been hearing from both sides of the controversial proposal since she was appointed in June by the province to review the 1991 Arbitration Act.
Boyd's review began after a public outcry against the plan, introduced by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice, which wants to use existing arbitration legislation to apply a form of sharia - a 1,400-year old body of religious law - to settle disputes in the Muslim community. The practice would be permitted under the Arbitration Act, which allows religious groups to resolve civil family disputes within their faith, providing everyone gives their consent and the outcomes respect Canadian law and human rights codes. But the Muslim Canadian Congress doesn't think it will work that way.
Along with several legal and women's groups, the congress has argued that sharia is flawed because it does not view women as equal and therefore cannot provide equal justice to all parties in a dispute especially on issues of divorce, child custody and division of property.
"The weakest within the Muslim community, namely the women, will be coerced (into participating) by their community," said Tarek Fatah, founder of the congress during his group's submission to Boyd earlier this week.
The group, formed two years ago, claims to have approximately 200 members across Canada. It is demanding the province suspend the ongoing review of the use of Islamic law to settle family disputes.
It wants Boyd to refer the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Calling the sharia-based arbitration proposal by the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice "racist and unconstitutional," congress lawyer Rocco Galati argued there is no such thing as a monolithic Islamic law.
"No one has said what sharia law is supposed to be. There's 1.3 billion Muslims on five continents. There are many differences (among the groups)," Galati said.
"There is a pretence that there is a Muslim law, just like saying there's an Asian law, an African law." He told Boyd that "there is a confusion here between religious freedom and injecting religion into public disputes."
But Syed Mumtaz Ali, who made his presentation to Boyd on behalf of the institute, argues that freedom of religion as guaranteed under Canada's Constitution means not only freedom to practise and propagate religion but also to be able to be governed by one's religious laws in all aspects of one's life - spiritual as well as temporal, he noted.
Ali, a Canadian-trained lawyer, said the Muslim tribunal would use and apply only those provisions of the sharia, which do not clash or conflict with any Canadian law, particularly the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The use of the word "sharia" is a misnomer, he added.
"I must emphasize that we cannot, simply cannot, permit anyone to designate any Muslim arbitral tribunal as `sharia tribunal.' The name `The Muslim Court of Arbitration' (Darul Qada) is a registered business name. This was so registered primarily for the purpose of legally making it obligatory upon all not to call it `sharia Court,'" he explained in an e-mail response to the Star. "This is very basic, fundamental and crucial to Muslims because in a faith-oriented, Islamic way of life, as distinct from a secular way of life, to obey the religious laws in this way is crucial," Ali wrote.
"One cannot call oneself a real Muslim if one does not obey the Islamic law in such a comprehensive manner. ... The Arbitration Act and the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice are not RACIAL because all races are equal under the Constitution."
Ali has received some support from the Canadian Islamic Congress, which met with Boyd 10 days ago. Its president, Dr. Mohamed Elmasry said the Muslim Canadian Congress as "non-religious Muslims have no right to tell religious people what to do."
Elmasry said religious Muslims in Canada are already using sharia to settle their disputes and the Institute proposal would add structure to the process.
"This should be viewed as an experiment," said Elmasry. In addition to an imam, Elmasry said there should be Canadian-trained lawyers, women and elders in the community represented on a panel involved with sharia-based arbitration. "The community and the government should audit the process - if it is perceived as anti-woman, it will die a natural death," he said.
Boyd will continue hearing submissions until next Friday.
Back to TopWhere is authority to limit debate?
Muslim Group opposes sharia law
Mohamed Elmasry (President of the Canadian Islamic Congress) describes the Muslim Canadian Congress as "non-religious Muslims who have no right to tell religious people what to do."
How dare he question my right to participate in a civic discussion about a piece of legislation that would impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, mainly women and children?
As a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, I strongly protest this false depiction of my religiosity. This is exactly what most Muslims fear from their clergy - their self-imposed authority to declare the rest of us as good or bad Muslims.
Not only is this approach offensive to Muslims, but also denies the rest of Canada the right to participate in this debate. It is at best tribal, if not racist and segregationist.
When Elmasry says that non-religious Muslims have no right to tell religious people what to do, is he suggesting that Canadian Muslims not respect the laws made by lawmakers who are almost all non-Muslim?
I pray five times a day; I fast during Ramadan; I pay my obligatory zakat (wealth) tax and no one has a right to accuse me of being non-religious.
But even if I was not religious, who gave him the authority to prohibit my participation?
Ali Mallah, Toronto
Back to TopThere are five divine guidelines that the Qur'an clearly presents to Muslims for building tolerance and understanding among differing religions.
My Qur'an's [Dawood translation] words re the above: [RJA comment: these don't always seem to me to support the above]
17:70+ -- We have bestowed blessings on Adam's children and guided them by land and swa. We have provided them with good things and exalted them above many of Our creatures. The day will surely come when We shall summon every nation with its apostle. . . . those who have been blind in this life, shall be blind in the life to come" (p.239)Back to Top
11:118+ -- Had your Lord pleased, He would have united all mankind. But only those whom He has shown mercy will cease to differ. For this end He has created them. The word of your Lord shall be fulfilled: 'I will fill the pit of Hell with jinn and men.'
10:99± -- Had your Lord pleased, all the people of the earth would have believed in Him. Would you then force faith upon men? None can have faith except by the will of Allah. He will visit His scourge upon the senseless, . . .Neither signs nor warnings will avail the unbelievers. (p.72)
18:29+ -- Say: 'This is the truth from your Lord. Let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it,' For the wrongdoers We have prepared a fire which will encompass them likethe walls of a pavilion.
39:7 -- If you render Him ho thanks, knowthat Allah does not need you. Yet the ingratitude of His servants does not please Him. If you are thankful, your thanks will please Him.
22:68-69 -- Fight for the cause of Allah with the devotion due to Him. He has chosen you and laid on you no burdens in the observance of your faith, the faith of Abrham your father. In this as in former scriptures He has given you the name of Muslims, so that His apostle may testify against you, and that you yourselves may testify against your fellow-men. [RJA comment: huh?]
42:15 -- Therefore call men to the true faith, and follow the straight path as you are bidden. Do not be led by their desires, but say: 'I believe in all the scriptures that Allah has revealed. I am commanded to exercise justice among you. Allah is your Lord and your Lord. We have our own works and you have yours; let there be no argument between us. Allah will bring us all together, for to Him we shall return.'
5:8 -- Believers, fulfil your duties to Allah and bear true witness. Do not allow your hatred for other men to turn you away from justice. Deal justly; justice is nrearer to true piety. Have fear of Allah; He is cognizant of all your actions.
60:8± -- It may well be that Allah will put good will between you and those with whom you have hitherto been at odds. Allah is mighty. He is forgiving and merciful. Allah does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither made war on your religion nor driven you from your homes. Allah loves the equitable. But He forbids you to make friends with those who have fought against you on account of your religion and driven you from your homes or abetted others so to do. Those that make friends with them are wrongdoers.
Islam's golden age in science, technology and intellectual culture spanned about 500 years, from the ninth until the 14th centuries. Muslim achievements in these areas greatly influenced the European Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as the birth of modern scientific method in the 17th century.
Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher, has rightly claimed, it was Muslims "who introduced the empirical method" in the study of nature and cultivated it widely when they were leaders of the civilized world.
The scientific method, as it has been developed in modern western science, was indeed invented by Muslims and first practiced by them on a large scale. Muslim scientists then were not only Arabs, but also people of other racial and ethnic groups such as Persians, East Indians, and Chinese.
Decades ago, when the Italian Orientalist, Assendro Baussani tried to hammer home the point that "Islam is an integral part of western intellectual culture," he was one of the few western voices then aware of the historical role of Islam in European civilization.
Very few people today know that Ibn Sina's best medical work, The Canon of Medicine, was taught for centuries in western universities and was one of the most frequently-printed scientific texts of the Renaissance. When the famous 13th-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, wanted to create a new rational theology, he studied an Islamized Arabic version of Aristotle. Aquinas realized that Aristotle had found a new home in Islam, so he wanted to seek one in Christianity as well.
Given the fact that today some people believe in an imminent "clash of civilizations" and a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and the west, it is worth remembering that our two civilizations do share a precious intellectual heritage in common. The west takes great pride in modern science as one of the greatest achievements of its intellect, an achievement no one should deny or belittle. Modern science could not have developed without the Renaissance. But without Islamic science and philosophy to build on, there would have been no Renaissance!
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