In this week’s issue, Liam Egan of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Ireland (MPACIE) renews the group’s call for the introduction of Sharia law in Ireland.
Egan said this is borne out of the council’s opinion that, had the rules of Islam’s long-established legal system been implemented in Ireland many year back, it would have prevented the collapse of our economy.
While we welcome any and all discussions on this call, we cannot say we support it. Sharia law is simply not the answer to our increasingly complex societal problems. Moreover, there is no state in the world that can be cited as a good example of Sharia in practice.
In countries like Saudi Arabia that pride themselves as leading Muslim societies, problems similar to those of Ireland still exist. In some cases they even have bigger problems, including gross human rights violations.
Rather than call for the introduction of a new justice system in Ireland, Metro Éireann believes it would be easier to encourage a Muslim state with an existing Sharia system to implement it in full so that we can appraise its success, if any. Only then would Sharia be an example to Ireland and other western states – granted that it abhors capital punishment for any crime.
In the meantime, it is important to point out that no single religious legal system has the answer to our problems. In the absence of a natural alternative, the Irish Constitution is the only acceptable system that we must pledge allegiance to. But that doesn’t mean we should not work to change any outdated laws.
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