Thailand to embrace Sharia

[Ryokan]

Thailand's military-installed government announced a flurry of initiatives Tuesday, including a proposal to introduce Shariah law in the restive Muslim southern provinces....

On Tuesday, Surayud said Muslims in southern Thailand should be allowed to have their own legal system, a fundamental shift in policy from previous governments.

"They should have the Islamic law in practice - the Shariah," Surayud said. Muslims in southern Thailand have different values from Buddhist Thais, he said....

Source. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/07/news/thai.php)

I knew it was bad when a Muslim took power in Thailand. This isn't looking good.

[pipelineaudio]

BAH!!!!

Politics make strange bedfellows. How long till we see groups like the Khmer Rouge being deified as "at least theyre better than these muslims"

scray stuff, I had thought thailand would hold off a little longer

[Francesca R]

Which is better—Sharia law or martial law?. Southern Thailand has not exactly had it peaceful for quite a while . . .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3955543.stm

[Miss Anthrope]

Which is better—Sharia law or martial law?. Southern Thailand has not exactly had it peaceful for quite a while . . .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3955543.stm

Actually, I can say quite easily that Sharia is FAR WORSE.

Call me crazy, but imprisoning and potentially executing women for the crime of BEING RAPED is a little insane to me. This is just for starters.

[Francesca R]

You're probably not crazy, but a few million people in Sudan, Rwanda, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, . . .[snip] . . . might disagree (if they were alive).

Plus—I don't think that the Qu'ran carries that prescrption, does it?

[RyanRoberts]

Plus—I don't think that the Qu'ran carries that prescrption, does it?

Not directly, but the corollary of a a few verses has that effect. There is a prescription against adultery and fornication, punishable by death or flogging. There is also a verse that says you need to produce 4 male witnesses to prove adultery took place (Mohammed had this handy revelation after Aisha was accused of adultery, and came up with the 4 witness thing, Joseph Smith style).

Unfortunately, many Islamic scholars have combined the two and rule that when a woman accuses a man of rape (or is found to be pregnant when unmarried) she implicitly admits to adultery and the 4 witnesses are required to prove that the undoubted sex act was rape.

Rape is punishable, but is almost impossible to prove under Hudood laws that require 4 witnesses to the act. The criminalisation of default adultery results in the disgusting rulings seen in some areas of the Islamic world.

It strikes me that Mohammed's intent with the 4 witness thing could easily be interpreted as trying to preserve women's honour in the face of slanderous allegation, not to condemn 14 year old girls to be flogged for the crime of being raped by a relative. Shame.

[luchog]

Plus—I don't think that the Qu'ran carries that prescrption, does it?

Shari'a is not based exclusively on the Qu'ran. There are the Sunnah and Fiqh as well, as well as a considerable amount of tradtion regarding interpretation and commentary that is specific to particular sects.

[CFLarsen]

Source. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/07/news/thai.php)

I knew it was bad when a Muslim took power in Thailand. This isn't looking good.

There are Muslims (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_laden) and there are Muslims (http://www.khader.dk/flx/in_english/)...

[marksman]

You're probably not crazy, but a few million people in Sudan, Rwanda, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, . . .[snip] . . . might disagree (if they were alive).

Plus—I don't think that the Qu'ran carries that prescrption, does it?

Yes. Yes it does. (http://www.ishr.org/activities/campaigns/stoning/adultery.htm)

A woman who is raped must present four male eyewitnesses to testify it is rape. (Not a very likely scenario.) Otherwise, if she it found to have had sex, she has committed adultery, for which the punishment is death by stoning if she is married and 80 lashes if she is not. By the way, she carries the burden of proof.

The hadiths that mandate this rule are in the Quran.
Volume 2, Book 23, Number 413: Punishment for adultery is stoning.
Volume 3, Book 34, Number 421: Same
Volume 3, Book 49, Number 860: Same
Volume 3, Book 50, Number 885: Same
Volume 4, Book 56, Number 829: Same
Volume 6, Book 60, Number 79: Same
Volume 7, Book 63, Number 195: Same (and the guy confessed adultery!)

Rape is not descreibed in Islam, but customarily an exception to the stoning for adultery is made for rape, if it can be proven. Proof in sharia courts requires the testimony of 4 competent witnesses (which means men), though some (not all) courts have accepted the confession of the rapist

[Cleon]

The hadiths that mandate this rule are in the Quran.

Hadith != Quran. The above sentence makes no sense.


Volume 2, Book 23, Number 413: Punishment for adultery is stoning.
Volume 3, Book 34, Number 421: Same
Volume 3, Book 49, Number 860: Same
Volume 3, Book 50, Number 885: Same
Volume 4, Book 56, Number 829: Same
Volume 6, Book 60, Number 79: Same
Volume 7, Book 63, Number 195: Same (and the guy confessed adultery!)


These are Hadith, not Quran--and I don't think you've actually read them, just coughed them up from a website without looking at them yourself. These are not commandments, these are stories.

In any event, Muslims consider them to be the words of Muhammed (the man), not the words of God (they consider the Quran to be the word of God). Different Muslim sects (such as Sunni and Shia) have different Hadith, as they've been compiled by different imams.

[Darth Rotor]

Yes. Yes it does. (http://www.ishr.org/activities/campaigns/stoning/adultery.htm)

A woman who is raped must present four male eyewitnesses to testify it is rape. (Not a very likely scenario.) Otherwise, if she it found to have had sex, she has committed adultery, for which the punishment is death by stoning if she is married and 80 lashes if she is not. By the way, she carries the burden of proof.

The hadiths that mandate this rule are in the Quran.
Volume 2, Book 23, Number 413: Punishment for adultery is stoning.
Volume 3, Book 34, Number 421: Same
Volume 3, Book 49, Number 860: Same
Volume 3, Book 50, Number 885: Same
Volume 4, Book 56, Number 829: Same
Volume 6, Book 60, Number 79: Same
Volume 7, Book 63, Number 195: Same (and the guy confessed adultery!)

Rape is not descreibed in Islam, but customarily an exception to the stoning for adultery is made for rape, if it can be proven. Proof in sharia courts requires the testimony of 4 competent witnesses (which means men), though some (not all) courts have accepted the confession of the rapist
When you cite Al Quran, the cite is normally a sura. As Cleon notes, Hadith more similar to Papal Bulls, or the various doctrinal pronouncements from the Pope.

DR

[Jorghnassen]

How will this affect sexual tourism for underage transexual prostitutes?

[Darth Rotor]

How will this affect sexual tourism for underage transexual prostitutes?
Must wear a burkha. Must bow to Mecca five times a day, even during the event, which poses some interesting technical questions on orifice selection by the customers . . .

DR

[Cleon]

When you cite Al Quran, the cite is normally a sura. As Cleon notes, Hadith more similar to Papal Bulls, or the various doctrinal pronouncements from the Pope.

Not even. A Papal Bull carries some weight as a matter of law; Hadith is more the equivalent of the Jewish Mishnah, a collection of allegorical stories. They're not law, they're not intended to be law, they're stories to be read and learned from.

[Darth Rotor]

Not even. A Papal Bull carries some weight as a matter of law; Hadith is more the equivalent of the Jewish Mishnah, a collection of allegorical stories. They're not law, they're not intended to be law, they're stories to be read and learned from.
I'll try and dig up my RCC stuff and get the right term of art, if Papal Bull isn't the right fit. If I recall my limited Islam correctly, the Hadithe are, and can be, cited by Muslim Jurists as valid ecumenical references in making decisions.

ETA: This makes the Hadithe eligible as sources of doctrine, if not canon in the purest sense of how the Catholic Church works. (The structures are of course different, so any comparison is inexact, and your note on differences in how sects use these non-scriptural sources is acknowledged. )

ETA 2: I was thinking encyclicals, (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/) but even that doesn't fit.

Non-scriptural doctrine. That's it.

DR

[marksman]

Cleon and Darth are right. I spoke incorrectly. This is not in the Quran, but in the Hadiths. However, it is my understanding that sharia is drawn, in part, from the Hadiths.

[a_unique_person]

Source. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/07/news/thai.php)

I knew it was bad when a Muslim took power in Thailand. This isn't looking good.

The vast majority of Thailand is Buddhist, it is just the tip of the South that is where the seperatist Muslim population is. Thailand has not 'embraced' sharia.

[Cleon]

Cleon and Darth are right. I spoke incorrectly. This is not in the Quran, but in the Hadiths. However, it is my understanding that sharia is drawn, in part, from the Hadiths.

No, it's drawn almost entirely from Hadith--incorrectly, mostly, as (like I said) Hadith is not supposed to be actual policy, but a set of stories to be studied and learned from. The words "thou shalt" do not appear in either the Sunni or Shia Hadith.

People forget that Islam is not the Roman Catholic Church--it doesn't have a pope or central leadership. It's incredibly decentralized. What we think of as "Sharia" isn't actually codified in Hadith or the Quran, but it's a series of policies that a group of imams have drawn up that's based on their interpretation of Hadith and Quran.

[marksman]

No, it's drawn almost entirely from Hadith
Um... I'm pretty sure that "almost entirely" and "in part" are synonymous. The other "part" would be judicial interpretations of said hadiths.

[AWPrime]

How will this affect sexual tourism for underage transexual prostitutes?

Only allowed if the customers are muslims.

[pipelineaudio]

Ill give you guys the same challenge then,

cleon, walk into a mosque, any mosque and say "you do not have to follow haddith to be a muslim"

please video tape this for me

[Cleon]

cleon, walk into a mosque, any mosque and say "you do not have to follow haddith to be a muslim"

They will look at me like I'm crazy and inform me that there's no such thing as "following Hadith," the same way a rabbi would look at me if I told him "you do not have to follow mishnah to be Jewish." Few Jews even bother to read it.

Don't believe me? Google the phrase "following hadith," and find an example of said phrase that doesn't mean "this hadith right here."

Remember, there is a Sunni hadith, a Shia hadith, an Ibadi hadith, etc. etc. Some Muslims don't follow any of these hadithun, just the Quran.