:salam2:
i always find it funny when people try make the shari'ah as some barbaric practice. the majority of us here are muslims and have been or have lived in the muslim world. how many hand amputees do you know or have seen? i haven't seen any yet and i believe that most of us haven't. they don't understand that some of the punishments seem harsh because they are meant to deter you from breaking the law. i once heard a nigerian shake in KANO state in northern nigeria ( which rules under shari'ah ) say: the whole point is to scare you from comitting the crime. if you had any sense, you wouldn't be stealing over there and 99% of the people don't.
the crime rates are lower in our muslim lands. i wont say that they are perfect, but it isn't a country with pack prisons like yhe US. the US has the highest prison population in the world, with south africa and russian in second and third place.
about hand cutting again, it has to be of a specific value. it wouldn't be cut off for stealing a candy bar or something.
As'salam Aleikum
"Corporal and capital punishment; right to representation
Saudi Arabia is one of a number of countries where courts continue to impose corporal punishment, including amputations of hands and feet for robbery, and lashings for lesser crimes such as "sexual deviance" and drunkenness. The number of lashes is not clearly prescribed by law and is varied according to the discretion of judges, and ranges from dozens of lashes to several thousand, usually applied over a period of weeks or months. In 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture criticized Saudi Arabia over the amputations and floggings it carries out under its interpretation of Sharia. The Saudi delegation responded defending "legal traditions" held since the inception of Islam 1400 years ago and rejected interference in its legal system.
Saudi Arabia also engages in capital punishment, including public executions by beheading.[4] Beheading is the punishment for murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers, according to strict interpretation of Islamic law. In 2005, there were 191 executions, in 2006 there were 38 and as of July 2007 there were already 102 including three women. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's National Society for Human Rights has said that numbers of executions are rising because crime rates are rising, that prisoners are treated humanely, and that the beheadings deter crime, saying, ""Allah, our creator, knows best what's good for his people...Should we just think of and preserve the rights of the murderer and not think of the rights of others?"[5]
In 1997, Human Rights Watch examined the case of Abd al-Karim Mara'i al-Naqshabandi, who was executed after being convicted of practicing witchcraft against his employer. The organization concluded that the Saudi legal system "fails to provide minimum due process guarantees and offers myriad opportunities for well-connected individuals to manipulate the system to their advantage."[6]
Women's rights
Saudi women face severe discrimination in many aspects of their lives, including education, employment, and the justice system and are clearly regarded as inferior to men. Although they make up 70% of those enrolled in universities, women make up just 5% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia,[7] the lowest proportion in the world. The treatment of women has been referred to as "gender apartheid."[8][9][10] Implementation of a government resolution supporting expanded employment opportunities for women met resistance from within the labor ministry,[11] from the religious police,[12] and from the male citizenry.[13] These institutions and individuals generally claim that according to Sharia a woman's place is in the home caring for her husband and family. It is a country where culture and religion make women live mostly restricted segregated lives. There is also segregation inside their own homes as some rooms have separate entrances for men and women. [14]
In the legal system, women face discrimination. An example of this is the requirements for testifying in criminal proceedings; The witness must be deemed sane, the age of an adult, and a Muslim. Non-Muslims may not testify in criminal court. Women may not testify unless it is a personal matter that did not occur in the sight of men. The testimony of a woman is not regarded as fact but as presumption. The reasons women are forbidden to testify in proceedings are (quote):[15][16]
1. Women are much more emotional than men and will, as a result of their emotions, distort their testimony.
2. Women do not participate in public life, so they will not be capable of understanding what they observe.
3. Women are dominated completely by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior; therefore, women will give testimony according to what the last man told them.
4. Women are forgetful, and their testimony cannot be considered reliable.
As a result of these laws women are particularly vulnerable in cases of assault and/or rape, as their testimony is treated as a presumption, while that of their attackers is accepted as fact. In some cases, victims of sexual assault are punished on the grounds that they should not be alone with unrelated males. It happened recently when a woman, victim of a gang rape, was sentenced by a Saudi court to six months in prison and 200 lashes for violating laws on segregation of the sexes, as she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack.[17] This case attracted the attention of the UN which expressed its concerns regarding the social attitudes and the system of male guardianship which deter women from reporting crimes and lead to a patriarchal system. Women are therefore prevented from escaping abusive environments because of their lack of autonomy and economic independence, practices surrounding divorce and child custody, the absence of a law criminalizing violence against women, and inconsistencies in the application of laws and procedures.[18] Women are not allowed to drive or ride bicycles on public roads in large cities. However, some do so on rural roads illegally.[citation needed] Women are allowed to fly aircraft, though they must be chauffeured to the airport.[19]
Women's rights are at the heart of calls for reform in Saudi Arabia - calls that are finally challenging the kingdom's political status quo[14] and the pressure from Western governments and from institutions such as the UN helps speed up the process. Local and international women's groups are also pushing governments to respond, taking advantage of the fact that some rulers are eager to project a more progressive image to the West. The presence of powerful businesswomen—still a rare breed—in some of these groups helps get them heard.[17] Prior to 2008, women were not allowed to enter hotels and furnished apartments without a chaperon or mahram. With a 2008 Royal Decree, however, the only requirement needed to allow women to enter hotels are their national ID cards, and the hotel must inform the nearest police station of their room reservation and length of stay.[20]Encouraged by the recent advances in women's rights, advocates for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia - the only country in the world that prohibits female drivers – have collected more than 3,000 signatures hoping that the driving ban will also be lifted this year (2008) by King Abdullah. But the chances for this to happen are still small in Saudi Arabia's deeply religious and patriarchal society, where many believe that allowing women the right to drive could lead to Western-style openness and an erosion of traditional values.[21]
According to the CIA world factbook, 70.8% of females are literate, in comparison to 84.7% literacy rates in males.[22]
Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries in the 2008 Olympics without a female delegation - women's sports are, in principle, banned; although some teams do exist.[23]" from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
Now I read these things on Wikipedia and everything looks so dark - how you put it here it looks like Saudi Arabia implements the sharia to perfection ...
I read so many things about Islam from Islamic sources and I read "no one has right over women" and so many no-nosense things about the role of women in Islam ... then I go on Wikipedia and I read about life in Saudi Arabia and how women are treated (as above) .... then I meet Saudi women who do not really tell me about any of the nasty things that I read from Western sources. Now unless I go there and live there I am not sure I will be able to tell, but so women in Saudi Arabia cannot work? Women's status is an example to explain my confusion - not knowing what is really going on and what would be my lifestyle if I was living in Saudi Arabia for example - here in the UK I work and study and I was told several times by Muslim friends that if I married I'd be able to keep working (in offices where there are men and all) but then I think that Saudi Arabia is taken as a model and I read about it and think - am I being an hypocrite believing in Islam but leading a half-western lifestyle.....
The same thing with chopping the hands off (the example given in this thread) I agree with what you are saying that it works as a deterrent - but you say that the "barbaric" practice does not exist and then I read that it actually does in Saudi Arabia, which is given here as an ideal application of Sharia law.
I am puzzled really - I believe in Islam but not in men made governments, and have not first hand experience of life in a predominatly muslim country
(sorry I may have gone off the topic a bit)