Sharia law. No-one at the counter in the coffee shop is an expert on Islamic law, no-one has any direct experience with Islamic law and its application to a variety of situations. And the outside 3d party sources of the conclusions being circulated at the coffee shop, that Islam in a negative, even threatening light, appear to have an interest in persuading the regular folks to fear Islamic law. Including our news/ media "reports."
The experts are behind the counter: preparing and serving excellent fare, but the proprietor-customer relationship in the shop itself restricts a robust discussion.
1. Immediate interest: Dhimmi status. Can a legally set, second-tier status, restricting some economic or political or religions privilege (even a lot) as to certain groups within a larger cultural whole, ever serve a legitimate, administrative, functional purpose. Can it be applied to transitional issues, such as immigration in current times- even though in the past there have been huge abuses of the second-tier status: persecutions. Can we separate the abuses of those who implement a theory for their own purposes, from the theory itself. A companion discussion here is at Spain Road Ways, Dhimmitude (Christian and Muslim) .
There is much on the internet about "dhimmi" status, the restricted legal status of the non-Muslim in Muslim areas . There are other categories for kinds of non-Muslims as well, and we are interested specifically in the forms of that dhimmitude in history. And, what does the Koran say, and how is that interpreted in Sharia law, or are they the same. Much to learn here, those as water for another time, to prime another pump, see://www.folkmusic.com/record/r_water.htm#Water (John McCutcheon).
Go here for a good start on a narrative of Muslim law, as those laws are interpreted and enforced in contemporary Egypt. "Public Policy and Islamic Law: The Modern Dhimma in Contemporary Egyptian Family Law," by Maurits Berger of the University of Amsterdam. Go to ://.emubarak.googlepages.com/dhimmiinegypt.pdf. You can also read it in html.
This dhimmiinegypt site focuses on personal status law, the legal angle as well as the religious origin, especially family law (not the full history we were looking for) but it served to give a grounding on Islamic law generally. It is a good idea to get your own framework and a start on information before taking anybody seriously on any topic. Otherwise, it is too hard to discern who is authoritative, who is rant, who is exploring (like here), so do explore on your own. We started gathering ideas as Hello, Fodder - Dhimmi and Immigration Issues.
2. Differences in dhimmitude as a concept.
Dhimmitude can be
a) Status. an objective legal / religious status, prescribed by religion and law, which the coffee shop discusses off and on with some discomfort because the lines drawn appear to be firm, and do not include them or their beliefs;
b) Variable. Affected by the subjective interpretation for range of oppression in implementing it. As in any court, the interpretations will be dependent largely on the judges of the time, and/or the religious-secular lawmakers, and the coffee shop acknowledges the range - we also have extremes in religious interpretation; and
c) Another word for human striving for supremacy. Compared to, as a human matter, the western individual (or universal?) practice of "dhimmi-ing" people, which the coffee shop does for entertainment and camaraderie, in every joke about every target profession, ethnic group, blondes, the trivial to the serious. There is a blocking out of the n word and the b word, however, and jokes about a country's people (how many light bulbs) have morphed into the blonde jokes. Improvement? with
d) Part of history in western government-socio-religio-political dhimmi-ing ( that has to include the individual) and that has enabled the WASP to dominate. Here, the dhimii-ing also fosters restrictions on other people's freedoms, even to death as in civil rights, slavery, lynchings, persecutions, crusades, holocausts. See contemporary skinheads as one example, ://www.prejudiceinstitute.org/skinheadsFS.html; and
e) A root idea with more dangerous branches. Western dhimmi-ing seems to include toxic additive - to shame the target, as in use of the n word, the b word, any word depicting a race, immigrant group, country of origin, gender, religious group. And blondes. Violence by people like skinheads is overt. Other violence, including shaming and humiliation, is masked.
Yet, there is an aspect of humiliation to "classic" dhimmitude as well - that the subdued "feel" subdued - see ://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
3. What we are finding. It appears that white males have been relatively free throughout history to dhimmi women, Jews, ethnic groups, you name it, but only get upset about dhimmi-ing when someone does it to them. I can dhimmi you, but you better not dhimmi me, etc.
Here is a 17th Century dhimmi apparatus - the Cage of Disgrace, in Levoca, Slovakia, for witch caging, shrewish-uppity women chastisement, humiliation, and Inquisition-related deaths of those who did not conform to the dominant male "Christian" Cult du Jour.The coffee shop loves to dhimmi lawyers, blondes, and it used to be ethnic groups. Laughs all around. Even those in a target group can make a bundle by dhimmying. Howard Stern dhimmying women, and women falling into line to get on the show? Is that a fair example? Or the woman who is also a member of an irrevocably dhimmied group. If a woman is always less than a man in a society, she gets a double dhimmy by being a woman and being in that group.
4. So keep looking into the concept and the process. For explorers, initial ideas on any topic, including dhimmitude may be off base - this is a new word to us - and to which this Duffy's Law, of eponymous fame, applies: "Most people are wrong about most things most of the time." See http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-eponymous-laws.
Looking up source sites so we can learn on our own, without relying on others' conclusions. Facts before analysis. Here, statements of law, application.
Source - a repeat: "Public Policy and Islamic Law: The Modern Dhimma in Contemporary Egyptian Family Law," by Maurits Berger of the University of Amsterdam. Go to ://.emubarak.googlepages.com/dhimmiinegypt.pdf.
As you research: See how the basic principles apply in a variety of situations, specifically where there are conflicts between different religious communities, or individuals of different religions and practices. The topic in dhimmiinegypt is not commercial law, but "status" law - family law - divorce, inheritance, marriage, guardianship.
Change over time. The history of interpretations both east and west show there is room for change on both sides in how to coexist, and it can happen again. Apparently there was substantial autonomy granted under the Ottomans (19th Century), but that autonomy has been restricted since 1956 and particularly in the 1970's, and you can read the legal and religious reasoning behind.
This gives a framework for much of our US and coffee shop discussion on the role of one group in imposing on another, and what is morally legitimate, if anything.
For legal buffs, note how judges there as well as here are careful to weigh, define, expand or contract interpretations, and still can leave areas unreconciled and inconsistent. Any time the makeup of courts and government change - there seems to have been a watershed in the 1950's and 1970's - laws and interpretations go up for grabs. Here and there.
Application. How close is Egypt's modern interpretation of Islamic law to that of other Islamic countries? For anyone dealing with divorces in this country, between people of differing religious systems, the article raises the kinds of issues you should be assessing with your clients, of any other country's traditions. Whose law controls. Where. What is recognized there that we do here. Legal dhimmitude of the laws themselves.
Sites against dhimmi status: ://www.jewishmag.com/57mag/dhimmi/dhimmi.htm; or seeing it as an inexorably increasing empire, etc. ://www.dhimmi.org/Eurabia.html; ://www.dhimmi.org/
Sites saying look at the alternative that other cultures do to their underdogs, or on the protection aspect, or overviews of pros and cons, similar sentiments: ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi
://www.dhimmitude.org/
The clearest conflict seems to be - is this right?
a) the east looking to common good - social cohesion fixed by a common set moral code, even if that is subject so swings over time - at the expense, if that arises, of the individual; and
b) the west looking to individual actualization and enrichment, however flawed the means (barring a large percentage of the population from access, in order to serve the others), and using capitalism to do to that largely; and at the expense of looking seriously at moral obligations to others, despite religious words to the contrary.
Ne'er the twain? If nobody gravitates to the middle consensus - allowing the other to live as it chooses, without agreeing to the terms within its culture? Boom. Will the one ever let the individual desire be run roughshod, and will the other ever let the individual's desire jeopardize the whole.
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