Sharia Law in UK!

[Crow]

I'm not going to get into the details of my personal distaste for sharia but the main problem with it in my opinion is that it will never work the way particular Muslims hope it would due to three things: First, in the Islamic world or ummah there are many different interpretations of what sharia entails so unless the entire populace come from the same view point there will be dispute on what sharia is. Second, Islam (and all other linear thinking religions) seems to forget the multifarious nature of humanity, sharia attempts to enforce divine laws upon people for being who they are and therefore would always be an undercurrent of hate towards the system. Third, there is no single example of sharia working effectively for any sustained periods of time, the Qur'an doesn't show examples of it making the world a better place due to these teachings, in my honest opinion it actually shows that war/civil unrest is likely to occur if they are attempted to be thrust upon a country.

Sharia has its positives and negatives like every other political system and is flawed just like them. What gets me is why do people want sharia law to become prevalent in western and eastern society when they could just up sticks and leave to a country that is more to there taste politically and culturally.

[iSok]

Out of fear of punishment people will abstain from any form of crime.

This has been demonstrated as incorrect through various studies.

Sharia is not just about applying the death penalty, it's an organic system with multiple levels.
Nit-picking and the system won't work but will crumble, what is obvious in many so called Islamic countries.

The Sharia is trying to prevent crime in the first place, for example:

- Alcohol is strictly forbidden (Human beings should be aware of their actions.)

Yes, here in the U.S. we have no idea what would happen if we passed some kind of federal law that would prohibit alchohol... oh wait... Long story short: it increased the amount of crime.

If you look up the stats of inmates in the United States, how many of them are from broken families?

How many? How many are atheists? Hardly any. I guess the point of looking up the statistics is to show that being an atheist is better than sharia law?

Despite poverty and corruption, the crime rates in peaceful Sharia states are far and far lower than any Western country.
(See nationmaster.com for statistics).

Frauds (per 1000) -
UK (5.2832)
USA (1.2572)
Saudi (0.0020)

Burglaries (per 1000)
UK (13.83)
USA (7.01)
Saudi (0.0004)

Assaults (per 1000)
UK (7.46)
USA (7.56)
Saudi (0.1781)

While that's all cute, let's look at other countries without sharia law as well as fewer capital punishments to make sure we're not cherry picking statistics (which you are).

Japan vs. Suadi Arabia Suadi Arabia has fiftteen times the capital punishment for being just slightly better.

Finland vs. Suadi Arabia No capital punishments for Finland and over all Saudi Arabia is just slightly better. you may also notice that Finland has 27 manslaughters and Saudi Arabia has 53... Good thing that sharia law is preventing people from kiling eachother, otherwise Saudi Arabia might have the out of control killing that is going on in Finland.

Switzerland vs. Saudi Arabia Look at that, no sharia law and fewer murders per capita with a larger population. How do they even manage a larger population like that where people are murdering less, without capital punishment and without sharia law?

Iceland vs. Saudi ArabiaWow, look at that! Much much fewer crimes, no sharia law...


Seriously though iSok, we could compare this all day with every country that doesn't have government mandated sharia law. What all this really points to is that people commit fewer crimes as the percentage of religious people gets smaller... on average. Cherry picking the US and the UK when there are so many other causes to describe the crimes is not effective. You provided two countries, and guess what, the US still issues capitol and other extreme punishments for crimes... and they still don't prevent people from commiting them. Any one remember a poor little thirteen year old girl getting sued for millions of dollars for downloading a few songs? Have extreme punishments like that stopped piracy? Definitely not. Digital piracy is even higher than before those punishments were issued (especially in Suadi Arabia for some reason).

I did not add rape statistics, since that is not fair.

Oh I agree that it's not fair, not when it's damn near impossible for a woman to even be considered as raped in Saudi Arabia. Requireing a minimum of four witnesses for a woman being raped even when there is much better evidence (like DNA evidence), does make comparing rape statistics between the countries kind of useless. I'm sure that any country that required four witnesses, for a rape to be considered a rape no matter what other evidence is provided, would drop the rape statistic to almost zero.

What's the obsession with atheists somehow being better people then the rest of mankind? Atheism is now prevalent among the intellectuals and within a few
decades it will spread out so the common man will also  be an atheist. Only then we can see whether atheism truly enhances society.
To compare them now is a huge statistical flaw, since it has not spread widely. Intellectuals don't end up in prison usually, whether they are believers or
non-believers. Once again atheism and agnosticism are now prevalent among the intellectuals but that will change within a few decades.

You made a huge mistake in your statistics Davin, I didn't cherry pick. I just compared the UK (Europe) and the USA.
In your stats you are looking at the total amount of crime and not at percentage.

See the statistics once again, this time I'll compare Finland with Saudi.

Car theft
Saudi:    0.2 per 1,000 people
Finland: 3.1 per 1,000 people

Frauds
Saudi: 0.002 per 1,000 people
Finland: 2.9 per 1,000 people

Jails
Saudi:   0.001 per 1,000 people
Finland: 0.01 per 1,000 people

Murder
Saudi: 0.001 per 1,000 people
Finland: 0.01 per 1,000 people

Saudi-Arabia scores everywhere 10 times lower or even more, especially in murder.
The same counts for all the other countries you listed.

I didn't add rape statistics, since that is almost equal to zero due to the fact that
women are covered up and less likely to be assaulted and there it wouldn't be fair to compare the two.


To Davin and to all the other's here who get emotional of this, there's no reason for that.
People should stop worrying about Muslims coming here and chopping everyone into pieces, I as a Muslim will not agree
with a Sharia law in the West, it simply will not work as it's intended for Muslims like I explained earlier.
The handful of people that shout these slogans are mostly idiots with no understanding of Islam and they are laughed
after by the majority of Muslims.

But it's absolutely wrong to say that we are barbarians with no civilization and no conscience, then I'm afraid
that you are very wrong.

[Davin]

What's the obsession with atheists somehow being better people then the rest of mankind?

I have no obsession with this, it's just what the data shows.

Atheism is now prevalent among the intellectuals and within a few
decades it will spread out so the common man will also  be an atheist. Only then we can see whether atheism truly enhances society.

Or we could compare the countries where atheists are much more prevalent to countries where religious folk are more prevalent.

To compare them now is a huge statistical flaw, since it has not spread widely.

Which reasoning would also apply to Sharia Law. Honestly: even with just the prohibition of alchohol, we already have a huge amount of evidence that, that would more than not work in the U.S..

Intellectuals don't end up in prison usually, whether they are believers or
non-believers. Once again atheism and agnosticism are now prevalent among the intellectuals but that will change within a few decades.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but I sure do hope you're not trying to say that atheists are smarter on average than religious people.

You made a huge mistake in your statistics Davin, I didn't cherry pick. I just compared the UK (Europe) and the USA.
In your stats you are looking at the total amount of crime and not at percentage.

See the statistics once again, this time I'll compare Finland with Saudi.

Car theft
Saudi:    0.2 per 1,000 people
Finland: 3.1 per 1,000 people

Frauds
Saudi: 0.002 per 1,000 people
Finland: 2.9 per 1,000 people

Jails
Saudi:   0.001 per 1,000 people
Finland: 0.01 per 1,000 people

Murder
Saudi: 0.001 per 1,000 people
Finland: 0.01 per 1,000 people

Saudi-Arabia scores everywhere 10 times lower or even more, especially in murder.
The same counts for all the other countries you listed.

The point was that extreme punishments do not deter actions:

Executions (per capita) [Japan]0.05 executions per 1 million [Suadi Arabia]1.1 executions per 1 million

22 times more capital punishments than Japan. If Sharia Law prevents crimes, then we should see that Japan has around 20 times more crime than Saudi Arabia, so let's see if that holds up:

Jails (per capita) [Japan]0.001 per 1,000 people [Saudi Arabia]0.001 per 1,000 people
Huh, they're equal and Japan does not have 20 times more jails.

Manslaughters (per capita) [Japan]0.004 per 1,000 people [Saudi Arabia]0.001 per 1,000 people
Huh, only 4 times more manslaughters and not 20 times more.

Prisoners > Per capita [Japan]54.0 per 100,000 people [Saudi Arabia]110.0 per 100,000 people
Wow, not only is it not 20 times more prisoners, it's less than half the amount of prisoners, maybe this Sharia Law increases the amount of crimes committed.

Software piracy rate [Japan] 23% [Saudi Arabia] 51%
Also not 20 times more, it's less than half.

It was funny how you claimed you weren't cherry picking then skipped right over my first example to Finland:

Murders > per 100,000 people [Swiss] 2.9  [Saudi Arabia] 3.2
Prisoners > Per capita    [Swiss] 72.0 per 100,000 people [Saudi Arabia]110.0 per 100,000 people
Software piracy rate [Swiss] 25% [Saudi Arabia] 51%

Manslaughters [Iceland] 0 [Saudi Arabia] 53 (does one really need to compare against the per capita of zero?)
Prisoners > Per capita [Iceland] 40.0 per 100,000 people [Saudi Arabia] 110.0 per 100,000 people

Prisoners > Per capita [Finland] 71.0 per 100,000 people [Saudi Arabia] 110.0 per 100,000 people
Software piracy rate [Finland] 25% [Saudi Arabia] 51%

All this statistics fun aside:

The huge error you're committing is comparing crimes across different legal systems. For a clear example: we can get into the rape problem between say, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. In order to get a conviction in the U.S. all one needs is evidence. What one needs in Saudi Arabia is four different people that saw the rape happening. Which system do you reasonably think is going to let a lot of rapists go unpunished, let alone even have a rape victim attempt to accuse their rapist? Do you see how one might find that rape could go unseen in an environment with such unreasonable requirements for conviction? I mean how often does a person rape someone in front of four people? This makes it a completely unreasonable comparison across legal systems. And all it shows is that not very many people in Suadi Arabia rape people infront four witnesses. How many rapes are committed infront of three or fewer witnesses? No one knows because this data is not shown.

I didn't add rape statistics, since that is almost equal to zero due to the fact that
women are covered up and less likely to be assaulted and there it wouldn't be fair to compare the two.

I think it's more than that, it's also that it's virtually impossible for a rape victim to get their rapist charged by requiring four witnesses. Having this kind of requirement in any legal system would reduce the amount of rapists charged and recorded, but would allow more rape because it's very unlikely that a rapist would be punished.

To Davin and to all the other's here who get emotional of this, there's no reason for that.

You're talking to the wrong guy about being emotional, I am virtually emotionless.

People should stop worrying about Muslims coming here and chopping everyone into pieces, I as a Muslim will not agree
with a Sharia law in the West, it simply will not work as it's intended for Muslims like I explained earlier.
The handful of people that shout these slogans are mostly idiots with no understanding of Islam and they are laughed
after by the majority of Muslims.

I was just showing you the error in saying that punishment prevents crime, when scientific, peer reviewed studies have shown that that is false.

But it's absolutely wrong to say that we are barbarians with no civilization and no conscience, then I'm afraid
that you are very wrong.

Maybe this should be directed at who had stated this instead of at me.

[iSok]

lol Davin, you accused me of cherry picking and now you are finding the lowest stats of every country on every crime level
to ensure yourself that Saudi will always sink low. (you ignore car thefts in Japan for example)
I hope that we are both adults and that there's no need to respond to every line like it's a game, it's a waste of time.
Reason I skipped to Finland was because you typed a few long lines behind the statistics, I assumed you it was your strongest appeal.
As for Japan, car theft and frauds are still far and far lower in SA. The execution rate is higher but that's because you can get killed
for offending the King in SA, which has nothing to do with the Sharia.

As I mentioned earlier that the situation in SA is not really well, so you won't see zero crime rate.
But surely lower than most western countries and if SA changes it's policy (like reducing poverty and corruption)
crime rates will surely drop to zero. The west doesn't have to be afraid of the Sharia, it'll never be introduced here.

[Davin]

lol Davin, you accused me of cherry picking and now you are finding the lowest stats of every country on every crime level
to ensure yourself that Saudi will always sink low. (you ignore car thefts in Japan for example)

You showed two countries where Suadi Arabia rates would be lower in comparison, I just chose four countries that didn't have Sharia Law as a legal system. I don't even know if they are the lowest, all I know is that they don't have Sharia Law.

I hope that we are both adults and that there's no need to respond to every line like it's a game, it's a waste of time.

The reason I reply this way is so that one can be sure which part of what you said I am responding to. Instead of me typing out, "when you said..." I can just quote exactly what you said and respond to it. It's not a game, it's a discussion.

Reason I skipped to Finland was because you typed a few long lines behind the statistics, I assumed you it was your strongest appeal.

Don't assume.

As for Japan, car theft and frauds are still far and far lower in SA.

Car thefts are only like 10 times lower in Saudi Arabia than in Japan, frauds are more yes, but the biggest thing is that less than half the per capita are imprisoned in Japan compared Saudi Arabia. Which means that in a country that has less harsh punishments, there are fewer criminals: thereby proving my point that extreme punishments do not prevent crimes (and would suggest that extreme punishments encourage crimes).

The execution rate is higher but that's because you can get killed
for offending the King in SA, which has nothing to do with the Sharia.

Yet another problem with you comparing crimes and punishment across legal systems, aye? Which is why I originally cited a link that contained references to several peer reviewed studies. You just ignored them and went off on quoting statistics.

As I mentioned earlier that the situation in SA is not really well, so you won't see zero crime rate.
But surely lower than most western countries and if SA changes it's policy (like reducing poverty and corruption)
crime rates will surely drop to zero.

Pure speculation, not to mention that in these statements you mention that a deterence to crime would be reducing poverty and corruption and not increasing the intensity of punishment. If what you claimed were true, one would only need to increase the punishment in order to reduce crime rates to zero.

The west doesn't have to be afraid of the Sharia, it'll never be introduced here.

I certainly hope not.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I didn't add rape statistics, since that is almost equal to zero due to the fact that
women are covered up and less likely to be assaulted and there it wouldn't be fair to compare the two.

I know this is largely besides the argument that is occurring here, but I couldn't help but respond to this. It is fairly well documented that men do not rape women because "they can't control" their lust or any such thing. It is an act of social dominance that has relatively little to do with a man's access to sex. It also has little to do with how a woman is dressed (unless you take into account clothing as a cue for social status or potential vulnerability, not just how sexually revealing it is). I can provide articles supporting these statements if anyone would like.

It will always be hypothetical, because there's no way to properly study it, but I would be willing to bet that the rape of marginalized women in Muslim countries is much higher than advocates of Sharia law would like to admit is possible.  

Edit: I realize this may open up a whole other kettle of fish, but I find any law that advocates for women cover up "for their own good" to be inherently sexist. I'm not familiar enough with it myself enough to say for certain that I think that's what Sharia law entails, but I've heard it used as a defense and I think it is pretty horrible.

[iSok]

lol Davin, you accused me of cherry picking and now you are finding the lowest stats of every country on every crime level
to ensure yourself that Saudi will always sink low. (you ignore car thefts in Japan for example)

You showed two countries where Suadi Arabia rates would be lower in comparison, I just chose four countries that didn't have Sharia Law as a legal system. I don't even know if they are the lowest, all I know is that they don't have Sharia Law.

I hope that we are both adults and that there's no need to respond to every line like it's a game, it's a waste of time.

The reason I reply this way is so that one can be sure which part of what you said I am responding to. Instead of me typing out, "when you said..." I can just quote exactly what you said and respond to it. It's not a game, it's a discussion.

Reason I skipped to Finland was because you typed a few long lines behind the statistics, I assumed you it was your strongest appeal.

Don't assume.

As for Japan, car theft and frauds are still far and far lower in SA.

Car thefts are only like 10 times lower in Saudi Arabia than in Japan, frauds are more yes, but the biggest thing is that less than half the per capita are imprisoned in Japan compared Saudi Arabia. Which means that in a country that has less harsh punishments, there are fewer criminals: thereby proving my point that extreme punishments do not prevent crimes (and would suggest that extreme punishments encourage crimes).

The execution rate is higher but that's because you can get killed
for offending the King in SA, which has nothing to do with the Sharia.

Yet another problem with you comparing crimes and punishment across legal systems, aye? Which is why I originally cited a link that contained references to several peer reviewed studies. You just ignored them and went off on quoting statistics.

As I mentioned earlier that the situation in SA is not really well, so you won't see zero crime rate.
But surely lower than most western countries and if SA changes it's policy (like reducing poverty and corruption)
crime rates will surely drop to zero.

Pure speculation, not to mention that in these statements you mention that a deterence to crime would be reducing poverty and corruption and not increasing the intensity of punishment. If what you claimed were true, one would only need to increase the punishment in order to reduce crime rates to zero.

The west doesn't have to be afraid of the Sharia, it'll never be introduced here.

I certainly hope not.

I'm tired of this discussion Davin, you win.


@DeterminedJuliet,
Agreed, that certainly would be hard to test, I'm not really familiar with the matter.

[Medusa]

So this is your definition of "due diligence"?

I did my due diligence. It's not my job to do it for you. And I'm not here to convince you to change your ways at all. I have listened and I have disagreed. But I am not in any way invalidating your beliefs here. At some point we just can discuss our sides without the need for the other to understand and/or agree. There is no need for me to convince you of what I know. It's not like I get a passing grade at the end of it. If you sincerely want to know where I get my point of view from, you will ask and listen. If you sincerely don't, then there would be no point for me to babble on, que no?

You were born an atheist and with no knowledge of barbarism. What changed?

The honest answer? I was introduced to barbarism at an early age. About 4 years of age.

[Tank]

Fraud is probably so low in Saudi Arabia because the accused simply bribes that authorities not to prosecute them. Corruption is endemic in Saudi society. British Aerospace have been paying the Saudi royal family hundreds of millions of dollars to buy military contracts for the Tornado bomber. When the serious fraud squad tried to investigate this they were warned off as a 'matter of national security'. It's not a surprise then that Saudi's bought the Typhoon fighter and that to meet the delivery schedule RAF fighters are being delivered late!

[fester30]

I think we can all probably agree... Sharia law = bad.  Shakira law = AWESOME!

[Medusa]

I think we can all probably agree... Sharia law = bad.  Shakira law = AWESOME!

I <3 you

[Too Few Lions]

Damn I missed this juicy thread being away on holiday (though it was nice to be on holiday!)
Just thought I might add a bit to the argument against Sharia law, and particularly against any suggestion that Saudi Arabia is a place that should be held up in any way as an example of a civilised land with good laws. There are few countries in the world where your life would be more unpleasant as an atheist or non-Salafi Muslim. Blasphemy and apostasy are still 'crimes' that can carry the death sentence in Saudi Arabia, along with other such 'criminal acts' as homosexuality, drug use, witchcraft (!) and actively promoting any religion other than Islam. It may have a lower reported rate of murder, assualt or theft than the US or UK but it's still a nasty little country with some very unpleasant laws and very few freedoms (particularly if you're a woman). It also actively promotes anti-Semitism, homophobia, anti-Western sentiment and hardline Islam around the world.

Government censorship is rife in Saudi Arabia, websites that promote gay rights, feminism, and religions other than Islam are actively blocked (I imagine this forum probably  is too). Cinemas are also banned , along with live television (very hard to censor!) Personally I can live with a higher crime rate if it also means I have the freedom to enjoy my life as best I can, and think and say what I like (particularly about religion, royalty or government) without being beaten, jailed and possibly executed!

I'm sure plenty of people have already seen it, but this was an interesting show screened on the BBC last year about Islamic schools in the UK and in particular Saudi state sponsored schools that teach the Saudi national curriculum, which includes such important lessons as comparing Jews to apes, stating that Jews and Christians are the enemy of Muslims, and teaching that the appropriate punishment for homosexuality is death;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN3eKN-ybG8

http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/saudi_textbooks_final.pdf