Debating Sharia : Islam, Gender Politics, and Family Law Arbitration

Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, __Debating Sharia__ approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives. Contents 7 Acknowledgments 11 Introduction: Situating the Sharia Debate 17 Foreword: Sharia and the Future of Western Secularism 17 Introduction: Situating the Sharia Debate in Ontario 24 Part One: Practising Religious Divorce among North American Muslims 47 1. Practising an ‘Islamic Imagination’: Islamic Divorce in North America 47 2. Faith-Based Arbitration or Religious Divorce: What Was the Issue? 78 Part Two: Regulating Faith-Based Arbitration 103 3. Multiculturalism Meets Privatization: The Case of Faith-Based Arbitration 103 4. ‘Sharia’ Courts in Canada: A Delayed Opportunity for the Indigenization of Islamic Legal Rulings 135 5. Asking Questions about Sharia: Lessons from Ontario 165 6. Islamic Law and the Canadian Mosaic: Politics, Jurisprudence, and Multicultural Accommodation 204 Part Four: Negotiating the Politics of Sharia-Based Arbitration 243 7. The ‘Good’ Muslim, ‘Bad’ Muslim Puzzle? The Assertion of Muslim Women’s Islamic Identity in the Sharia Debates in Canada 243 8. ‘The Muslims Have Ruined Our Party’: A Case Study of Ontario Media Portrayals of Supporters of Faith-Based Arbitration 269 Part Five: Analysing Discourses of Race, Gender, and Religion 291 9. Sharia in Canada? Mapping Discourses of Race, Gender, and Religious Difference 291 10. Agency and Representations: Voices and Silences in the Ontario Sharia Debate 319 Part Six: Managing Religion in the Canadian State 341 11. Managing the Mosaic: The Work of Form in ‘Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion 341 12. Construing the Secular: Implications of the Ontario Sharia Debate 363 Concluding Thoughts 389 Conclusion: Debating Sharia in the West 389 Contributors 407

When the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced it would begin offering Sharia-based services in Ontario, a subsequent provincial government review gave qualified support for religious arbitration. However, the ensuing debate inflamed the passions of a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, garnered worldwide attention, and led to a ban on religiously based family law arbitration in the province. Debating Sharia sheds light on how Ontario's Sharia debate of 2003-2006 exemplified contemporary concerns regarding religiosity in the public sphere and the place of Islam in Western nation states.

Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, Debating Sharia approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives, including policy and media analysis, fieldwork, feminist examinations of the portrayals of Muslim women, and theoretical examinations of religion, Sharia, and the law. This volume is an important read for those who grapple with ethnic and religio-cultural diversity while remaining committed to religious freedom and women's equality.

Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, Debating Sharia approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives, including policy and media analysis, fieldwork, feminist examinations of the portrayals of Muslim women, and theoretical examinations of religion, Sharia, and the law. This volume is an important read for those who grapple with ethnic and religio-cultural diversity while remaining committed to religious freedom and women's equality."--Pub. desc