Shari’a Law: Recipe of Disaster

by Ismail Hassan
Friday, April 17, 2009

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Many people advocate the implementation of Sharia Law in Somalia. However, we should ask the subsequent questions: why should the embryonic Somali government implement the Sharia Law? What is the significance of its implementation? What are its benefits, if any? What are its negative affects? I am convinced that Sharia Law’s negative affects outweigh its benefits. Our modern day is extremely different from the earlier epochs—fourteen and some centuries ago. Ancient people had little knowledge about the world around them. They were less educated about geography, cultures, world religions, science…etc., and Sharia Law might have been applicable to their ways of life. However, it is, I believe, not applicable for our time, especially the condition in our country today. If one glances the nature of the Sharia Law, one finds that it contains not only a harsh and brutal banishments, but it also violates human rights: cutting hand and legs; stoning people to death; whipping; beating; cutting heads…etc. I challenge any reader to show me otherwise. Let us look Sharia Law in action.

Look at what happened to those who tried to implement Sharia Law in our modern time. A case in point is the brutal and notorious Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban implemented the Sharia in Afghanistan.. They denied women’s right to attend school; they forced men to grow ugly beards; they closed countless businesses (e.g., stores who sell TVs, cassettes, movies, music, pictures, theaters); they forced women to stay indoors; they stoned their own citizens to death without the due process of law; they permitted legally that men can marry 9-year-old girls; I can go on and on and on. The point is that these people, who were banished, were poor who were trying to support their children and families. Yet, without providing any social programs, the Taliban government destroyed their livelihood. That is, instead of focusing on elevating the poverty and illiteracy that engulfed Afghanistan for so long and enhancing and improving the living standard of their people, they waste their energy and their time monitoring and banishing the weak and the poor Afghanis. This is not to deny that Taliban helped to eliminate the robberies that engulfed the land, but they were more harsh and brutal. Their justification was simply that they were implementing the Sharia Law. This brutal and harsh treatment is repeated in Somalia.

One can easily recall the first time that extremists appeared in Somalia. They brutally murdered countless people. They immediately started to cut the hands and legs of those who were accused robbing people without any evidence. I personally remember and witnessed one young man who was accused as robbing people and he was sentenced without any presence of a defense lawyer. After his hand and one of his leg were caught, a BBC reporter asked the ‘sheikh’ whether they are going to support him and his family since he become a handicap. The ‘sheikh’ replied that they are not concern about his or his family’s future fate. Another vivid and horrendous instance is the widely reported underage girl who was stoned to death few weeks ago. There were countless stoning and cutting hand and legs cases that are not reported. These extremists closed countless businesses, as their Taliban counterparts. As reported, they prohibited watching football and movies and they forced women to wear burqas. The implication of this is that if Sharia Law is implemented in Somalia now, our people would experience a harsh and brutal banishments that they have never endured before.

There are some people who argue that the problem is not the Sharia Law per se, but the problem is the people who were implementing the Sharia Law. Put it bluntly, their argument goes like this: Sharia Law is a good law but those people who are implementing do not know how to do it. Their argument falls into the ground when one glances the real nature of Sharia Law itself. The problem is not the people who are trying to implement, but the nature of the Sharia itself. If you read any of the main schools of the Sharia be it Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki or Shafi’I, you will find that Sharia Law is simply consists of brutal punishment. I challenge anyone to show me that Sharia Law is not the way I described. Based on this conviction, we should oppose any Sharia implementation.

Ismail Hassan
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