In his review of Sherene Razack’s Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics, Anver Emon criticizes Razack’s explanation of the sharia debate in Ontario (“Sharia and Its Discontents,” June 2008). Sadly, both feed into the same racist discourse which they criticize, when they limit the Ontario debate to Muslims and sharia laws.
Many believe Muslim woman have no objection to sharia, which we view as an encompassing value in Islam. It is Muslim family law to which we objected.
The issue in Ontario was that the Arbitration Act allowed for the use of any laws, including religious laws, in private legally binding arbitration. Although the Jewish beit din had used the act for many years, the public outcry was raised only when a Muslim lawyer spoke publicly of initiating a sharia tribunal in 2003. The issue should have remained focused on the differential treatment of religious women in law. Instead, the debate became overladen with complex issues of multiculturalism, such as legal pluralism and religious rights.
More than 30 organizations advocated against any religious laws in legally binding private arbitration for family matters and it took over two and a half years to change the act. As opponents of the act, we emphasized the legal equality of all women. This position was based on the fact that no religious laws, including Muslim family laws, have the equality of women as a fundamental value.
Emon’s criticism that the debate did not raise the issues of legal pluralism or multiculturalism is incorrect. These were, in fact, the main arguments made by the proponents for religious family laws. They evoked multiculturalism and religious rights and cried discrimination against Islam and sharia. Emon’s statement that the opponents of the act were concerned about the “oppressive Muslim husband” belittles the focus of our criticism, which was on religious laws and not individuals.
Rather than Razack’s racism theory, the more pervasive argument used was cultural relativism: a belief that Muslim women should be viewed as so different that the same rights under Canadian law need not apply to them. We did not feel “imperilled” until we were told that our equality was secondary to religious rights, which must include religious family laws.
When Professor Emon and his ilk talk of sharia, why is it limited to family laws and not the entirety of Muslim jurisprudence? We echo his wish for a “vibrant sharia discourse” if it includes Muslim majority countries, the political use of religion, identity politics and gender discrimination in the laws.
Alia Hogben
Canadian Council of Muslim Women
