How America has a Shariat court of its own with the US Supreme Court: Opinion
The fanatics among Christians and their political masters, at times, mention Islam and Shariat condescendingly, pretending to be champions of modernity and human rights. Lo and behold, they now have a sort of Shariat court of their own – the Supreme Court of the United States.
Only a Shariat court would take the stance that “the gang of six” took against Roe V. Wade. They argued that no political and socio-cultural evolution had occurred in America, and the Constitution only protected those rights that existed at the time the amendments to it were ratified.
The mullahs who constitute a Shariat court also believe that the world has undergone no socio-cultural evolution in 14 centuries.
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Why is women’s right to choose abortion in a continuously evolving world a state matter, but the people’s right to keep arms that were inculcated into the Constitution for the sake of “the security of a free State” is not?
The trigger-happy conservative justices fail to explain why the right to bear arms covers today’s sophisticated weapons, when none of those weapons existed on Dec. 15, 1791 – the day the Bill of Rights stood ratified. They recognize the advances in weaponry, but are blind to the phenomenon of socio-cultural evolution.
There is nothing more self-conceited, self-serving, ignorant and draconian than recognizing socio-cultural evolution, selectively. Once you see evolution in one socio-cultural layer, you accept that evolution is happening. Then how can you say that it is not happening in other socio-cultural layers – “the bands of society,” as James Madison put it.
Shariat is an Urdu word. Its Arabic equivalent is sharia. Either way, it signifies nothing but a code of conduct that devout Muslims follow in their personal lives. And that, of course, is fine. You have the right to live conservatively if that’s what you want. It’s another thing that some Muslims interpret the code so literally and anachronistically that they make a mockery of themselves.
And that’s fine, too: One has the right to make a mockery of oneself. The Amish people avoid cars and buses, relying on horse-drawn buggies, even when they use highways where fast vehicles pass them, at times, at great peril to everyone and everything around them, not to speak of the poor horses. By the way, is that not cruelty to animals?
But the problem starts when you want to impose your perceptions and insecurities on others. Ignoring socio-cultural evolution and then creating and upholding laws accordingly is what ignorant among mullahs think Shariat means, and by sticking to that thought, they have inflicted misery and injustices on the people whose lives they control.
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For example, Pakistan has a federal Shariat court and a council of Islamic ideology. Those organizations have their websites. That’s right: The deniers of socio-cultural evolution use modern technology to propagate backwardness. A regular supreme court exists, too. But it knows its limits. However, at times, it is at loggerheads with FSC and CII, and understandably so.
Also, there are blasphemy laws in Pakistan and other religiously intoxicated countries, like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Suppressive dispensations must have blasphemy laws. Otherwise, they cannot survive. Simply extinguishing the freedom of speech does not suffice. A suppressive system must be able to terrorize those who dare speak, hence its blasphemy laws.
Now the SCOTUS mullahs have injected similar backwardness into America’s juridical veins. They have declared socio-cultural evolution dead. Women no longer have the choice to receive an abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas says contraception rights and LGBTQ rights are on the chopping block, too.
His opprobrious reasoning: Contraceptives did not exist two and a half centuries ago. But neither did today’s sophisticated weapons. Homosexuality and LGBTQ individuals must have existed back then: Right? But their acceptance by society did not, and that’s good enough for Thomas. Instead of lamenting the backwardness of that era, he wants society to return to it.
What is next? Interracial marriage, mosques, temples, synagogues and human equality? Are blasphemy laws on the anvil?
When you deny socio-cultural evolution, not only do you shut the door to progress, you push society toward backwardness. Revolutions and evolution must move a nation forward, not backward. Otherwise, you face the danger of turning into a mindless rigid society, examples of which abound.
A religion-imbued country name, e.g., Islamic Republic of Pakistan or Islamic Republic of Iran is just a symptom. The disease is that such countries stopped recognizing the difference between evolution and devolution. The conservative majority in SCOTUS seems to have taken a similar declivitous path.
“We the people” must make act before America becomes totally averse to modernity and human rights. We must stop our Supreme Court from becoming the Christian equivalent of a Shariat court. Let us not become the Christian republic of America!
Siddique Malik is an observer of sociopolitical affairs. Find him @The SummerOf1787.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: How America has a Shariat court of its own with the US Supreme Court
