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What exactly is Sharia law?
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Similarly Sharia governs the interactions between communities, groups and social and economic organisations.
Sharia establishes the criteria by which all social actions are classified, categorised and administered within the
overall governance of the state. Sharia first establishes the patterns believers should follow in worshipping Allah:
prayers, charity, fasting and pilgrimage.
Sharia literally means a well-trodden path to water, the source of all life, representing the path to Allah.
Dr Jamila Hussain, a research associate at the University of Technology in Sydney says that Sharia encompasses all
aspects of a Muslims life. The overriding principle of Sharia is justice. Its very broad and includes ordinary ways
of life, for example how you behave towards other people. Religious duties like prayer and fasting and giving to
charity which is very important, she told SBS. And it includes things like commercial law, inheritance law,
family law. But Sharia has been made notorious by extremist groups like Islamic State wanting to implement hard
line aspects of Islamic law. According to the American Muslim scholar Imam Suhaib Webb, there are five main
things that Sharia law aims to preserve: life, learning, family, property, and honour.
The Sharia regulates all Muslim actions and puts them into five categories: obligatory, recommended, permitted,
disliked or forbidden. The rules for food are those of haram (banned) and halal (allowed). All vegetable, fruit, grain
and seafood is halal. Meat is halal providing it has been killed in the kindest possible way by a sharp instrument that
pierces and kills swiftly (sharp knife, bullet, sword), and the appropriate prayers are said at its death (or at the time of
eating if one is not certain). Muslims may not eat any food that has been sacrificed to idols but kosher is fine.
Sharia does not require women to wear a burka. There are all sorts of items of dress which are worn by Muslim
women, and these vary all over the world. burkas belong to particular areas of the world, where they are considered
normal dress. In other parts of the world the dress is totally different. The Sharia rule of dress for women is modesty.
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What exactly is Sharia law? http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/what-exactly-is-sharia-l...
Egypt, Mauritania, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and certain
regions in Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates.
Sharia law divides offences into two general categories: hadd offences, which are serious crimes with set penalties,
and tazir crimes, where the punishment is left to the discretion of the judge. According to the Oxford Islamic
Studies, these Hadd offences include:
Tazir are severe crimes that do not measure up to the strict requirements of Hadd offences. Punishment can range
from the death penalty, fines, imprisonment and caning at the discretion a judge.
Dr Hussain says such punishments are not enforced anywhere except in a handful of very conservative Muslim
countries and are considered cruel and outlandish to the majority of Muslims around the world.
Fear of Sharia
The Australian Muslim Womens Association says fear of Sharia is just one manifestation of a general fear of Islam
and Muslims among some members of the public, most of whom have never met a Muslim or have any real
knowledge of Islam.
Most of the information the Australian public receives about Sharia comes from the media, which concentrates on
exotic or sensational stories which will grab public attention and sell newspapers or internet advertising, the
association says. Thus beheadings, lashings, polygamy, and terrorism (especially against western targets) are more
interesting to the media than sober explanations of law. In this way the Australian public has learnt to connect Sharia
with the hudud punishments of stoning and amputation and with the oppression of women in countries like Saudi
Arabia and Iran, although in fact, these have no relevance to life in Australia.
While there a small number of fringe radicals in the Muslim community here who want Australia to adopt sharia as
its legal system, there has been no general call on behalf of the Muslim community for the establishment of Sharia as
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a parallel legal system or for the introduction of Islamic criminal law at all, says the association.
University of Sydney legal academic, Dr Ghena Krayem, agrees and says the current assumption that Muslims want
a separate legal system that is called Sharia thats simply not true. Mainstream Muslim groups believe it is vital
for community leaders to convince the public that Muslims are not trying to impose Sharia on everyone and there is
nothing to fear.
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