Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Sharia in Action

This story from Britain is not brand new. It was published last Thursday, but between the attack on Tommy Robinson and the intervention of Christmas Winterval, I wasn’t able to give it the attention it deserved when it was fresh.

Over the last several years we’ve heard a lot about the 85+ sharia courts in Britain. Apologists for the parallel judicial system reassure us that the sharia courts never hand down decisions that are in any way a violation of British law. Muslims insist that their system is analogous to the Jewish halacha system of mediation, and is thus no threat to secular jurisprudence. If we are to believe their reassurances, sharia courts adjudicate nothing more controversial than arcane details concerning inheritance and child custody, that sort of thing.

But sharia is more than that. A lot more. As Muslims never tire of reminding us, Islam is not just a religion; it’s an “entire way of life”.

For example, from the authoritative source on Sunni Islamic law ’Umdat al-salik wa ’uddat al-nasik, or The reliance of the traveller and tools of the worshipper — commonly referred to as Reliance of the Traveller when cited in English — we learn this useful information (from Book O, “Justice”):

o1.2 The following are not subject to retaliation:

 […]
(2)a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim;
 […]
(4)a father or mother (or their fathers of mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring; …

This is the legal basis under sharia for what are commonly known as “honor killings”. When a child — usually a daughter — dishonors the family, her parents customarily feel bound to kill her, and sharia specifies that Islamic law permits no punishment for such killings.

What makes the following case unusual is that a British court of law anticipated traditional Muslim practice, and forced a baby to be put up for adoption to prevent what “the judge rightly regarded the risk of physical harm” to the child, her mother, her grandmother, and her mother’s siblings. This is a blatant deferral to the most violent aspects of sharia law.

According to The Daily Mail:

A baby born to a Muslim mother after an affair must be adopted to prevent the child becoming the victim of an honour killing, the Court of Appeal ruled today.

The baby’s mother, who is not married, was so ‘terrified’ of how her family would react that after becoming pregnant she ran away from home.

She then concealed her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and travelling to the other side of town for her antenatal care.

As soon as the baby — known only as Q — was born the mother gave her up for adoption.

Upholding a High Court decision, three judges ruled that Q’s father could not have his daughter to live with him because of the risk the baby’s maternal grandfather would track her down.

Instead, Q, who is now a year old, will be adopted.

Under normal circumstances, a family court would prefer to place a child in the care of a natural parent, if that parent is capable of raising the child properly. This is what one would expect if white people persons of British background were involved. But the rules are different for Muslims.

The article continues:
The baby’s maternal grandmother had told police that if her husband found out about the child ‘he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children’.

Today Lord Justice Munby, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin said in a joint ruling that the child was at risk if she was not adopted.

Just think about what the justices are doing here: they are anticipating violent, murderous behavior on the part of Muslim relatives, and their reaction is not to warn the likely perpetrators that they will experience the full righteous fury of retributive British justice.

No, they are giving the would-be murderers exactly what they want, the preservation of their honor. A child will be forced into adoption to prevent her grandfather from experiencing shame:

They said if the grandfather discovered the affair ‘it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family’.

[…]

The baby’s father — a married man known as F — had launched an appeal against the decision made by Mrs Justice Parker in the High Court last July.

She found there would be ‘a very significant risk of two and two being put together’ if the child went to live with its father because the baby was quite obviously not his wife’s child.

The justices foresee criminal — homicidal — behavior on the part of the grandfather, and their response is to force an infant into adoption rather than deal with the customary behavior of Muslims, which they seem to accept as beyond their control, if not actually normal:

The appeal court judges ruled: ‘In the particular circumstances of this case, the judge rightly regarded the risk of physical harm to Q and M (her mother) as being of major importance.’

The court heard that although both the baby’s mother and father were Muslim, there was a ‘profound cultural difference’ between them.

Upholding Mrs Justice Parker’s decision to make an adoption order, the appeal judges said: ‘The mother’s evidence, supported as it was by her actions, and the evidence of (the father) and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm.

‘In our judgment this conclusion cannot be criticised.’

Yes, I know that adoption may turn out just fine for the child, and that adoptive parents can be just as loving and nurturing as biological parents.

But that’s not the point. The point is that a British court anticipated murder and adjusted its decision accordingly, seemingly without blinking an eye.

This is complete, unabashed sharia. The British judicial system is not beating around the bush anymore: it is acting as the enforcer of a full-blown Islamic state.


Hat tip: Gaia.

15 comments:

Nemesis said...

If the judges had quoted directly from the Sha'ria and used those quotes on which to base their decision to have the child adopted out, I would agree with you that the system is bending to Islam, but that wasn't the case. Their decision was based on the evidence presented by the grandmother, who had appealed to police to not let the child be given over to the next of kin lest the grandfather would feel honor bound to kill their grandchild.

The judges decision is simply recognition that the child would not be safe with its grandparents. There has been no mention of this adoption being Sha'ria compliant in the judgement which one would expect if the decision had been based on religious grounds, and while the recognition by the judges concerned of the implications for the child, if it were to be handed over to its grandparents, is paramount to the child's safety, they must also be recognizant that they were dealing with Muslim's whose outlook on life is totally alien to most British citizens.

While all Western Courts now practice multicultural idealisms when handing down decisions and sentences to the 'cultural enrichers' I don't believe it has got to the stage where Islam is exercising the upper hand, at least not yet!

Anonymous said...

There may be some risk of consequences for other cases, but this decision is not improper. A credible danger exists, but an actual crime hasn't been committed yet...according to the statements presented here. One does wonder how the other family members can be so certain that their patriarch would murder an innocent child if he really hasn't committed any other crimes, but a strong Islamic background can be like that.

If (as is very possible) the Islamic background is serving as a cover for prior crimes which are being overlooked, then there is a credible reason to identify this as an example of bowing to Shariah. But the facts as stated do not support that contention.

Anonymous said...

I believe there is a worse problem here. The child was given to other Muslims. Remember that the stain on the grandfather's "honor" hasn't been erased, only whitewashed by hated infidel justice. What's the chance that they, being good Muslims who know the requirements for Islamic "honor", give the child back to him so he can erase that stain the proper Islamic way, by murdering the child?

gsw said...

Nemisis is right,

According to the shari'ah, this child cannot be adopted, because adoption is anti-islam (it got in the way of Mos lechery and became haram).

According to the "reliance of the traveller", the child of an unmarried women - if not killed with her - would come under the guardianship of the girls father until aged 7 and then be given to the father.

I just don't understand why the mother of the child couldn't be given a new identity at the same time.

Anonymous said...

Respectfully Nemesis, I have to disagree w/u on this one. It doesn't matter at all if the court cites Islamic law openly. Not one bit. It's what the court does in effect that counts. What they've done here is register a culturally biased decision that "observes" sharia law. The GF's sensitivities are his sensitivity to Islamic law. In the way the court's decision validates honor killings, bows to those sentiments, rather than putting the GF on notice that he better abide to Western standards or else, they bow to his observance of shari'a, which in effect bows to shari'a and places it above Western law. We don't let potential murderers create legal precedent and we certainly don't create workarounds in the courts that have the effect of appeasing such people and validating their inhumane ideological positions. The decision is appalling. RoR

RayB said...

Nemesis said what I would have said. The court was concerned solely with the child's safety.

Any perpetrator of an honour killing would be pursued and prosecuted under British law as would any other killer.

The only difference is that there would no witnesses and no co-operation from the muslim community so the police would have to work harder to solve the case.

Salome said...

I've just had a quick read of the judgment and I think Nemesis is right. The case was largely to do with the father contesting the right of the adoptive parents. Effectively, the decision to adopt the child out had been well and truly made. It simply wasn't the forum for addressing the underlying issues--a problem, perhaps, with specialist jurisdictions. Nevertheless, it is disturbing the attitudes such as those that the grandmother feared are tolerated at all, particularly seeing that they have such potential and, in some cases, actual consequences.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Nemesis. Furthermore, I would consider the judge to be criminally negligent if she left the child with the family. With the direst of warnings, the chances are the grandfather would kill the child and hop on the nearest plane to Pakistan. Even if he were caught and imprisoned, the child, totally innocent, would be dead. NO!!!!!

I have no problem with putting the grandfather and his whole ratf*** community into prison for life, but to knowingly allow the murder of an infant is totally beyond the bounds of civilized behavior.

Anonymous said...

I do wish to clarify that the fact that this person can be such an imminent danger to a young child without actionable evidence of other crimes is somewhat alarming. If there were really equal treatment, then the authorities would be having themselves a nice hard look at whether there was anything they could use to put Gramps away.

But the judgment granting adoption is still right, it does not of itself represent any violation of justice. The problem is that Gramps faces no official inquiry into what he might have done in the past to convince his family that he'd definitely murder an innocent baby. But that is (quite rightly) a separate issue, one on which this court cannot speak in this judgment.

Chiu Chun-Ling.

Anestis Canelidis said...

Sharia Law must be resisted at all costs. If they don't like the rule of law in our nation then let them go back where they came from.

Anonymous said...

In a very general way, there seems to be a group belief that somehow there will come a point where the moral lines will become black and white and we can defend against sharia encroachment and not have anything tugging at our conscience. I don't see this black & white moral dynamic developing. I think this is a very seductive myth. I see a never ending assault in little encroachments where there is typically a "good reason". The child's welfare is important, agreed. It is the "good reason". This is the dynamic of the encroachment: to use our own values like democracy and judeo-christian morality against us. It's not going to get easier to resist at some mythical point in the future. We might sleep well tonight, but we've failed to defend ourselves here and I'd argue we will pay for it exponentially in the precedent it sets. RoR

Westward Ho said...

I believe that cases like this elude comprehension by most people, whether judges or article readers (like myself), because we struggle to understand this bizarre idea we label "honor." Our society just lacks the principle that's really in play. So we don't know how to understand this thing that muslims feel at such an instinctive level.

Instead of shoehorning the term "honor" into the role, this article suggests applying the Arabic term for it - "Thar" - which I understand to be the invisible "stuff" muslims must conserve via control of their women. And the loss of which feels literally like a fate worse than death.

Might it be worthwhile to use this term such that it becomes part of our counter-jihad lexicon, like "dhimmi," "kaffir," etc? No more "honor", use the term Thar-killing, and let people ask. They will make a place in their mind for a *new* concept, instead of misprojecting what they have experience with (i.e. honor, as we think of it) onto Muslims, like usual.

Also, because some people (cj'ers) get used to using a term, it may later reach wide recognition when more Westerners seek knowledge about this in the future.

Anonymous said...

As a father what I find very disturbing is the dismissal of the father's "offer" (which to me is an odious a choice of words by the writer - why not "wish" as it was not apparently conditional on anything or even or "courageous conviction" as he may well have understood the social consequences of this fateful relationship and consequence better than anyone). So this Judges attitude to the male participant of this social drama is equally as insulting.

Anonymous said...

Westward Ho: I have read the Thar essay before and found it relevant.

I will start to use the word Thar!

Anonymous said...

An interesting article.

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