The story of Shariah in Indonesia's Aceh province is a telling lesson that what we think we know of Islamic law is often more complicated and nuanced in reality. It is the only province in the world’s most populous Muslim nation to impose Shariah.
But why was Shariah introduced in the first place?
Simple: politics.
Government officials in Jakarta were trying to delegitimize the separatist movement in Aceh, and by linking them with images of hard-line Islamic law, Jakarta calculated that the rebels would lose support at home and (especially) abroad.
Shariah is a daily fact of life in Aceh. But what does that actually mean?
For one, alcohol is hard to find, and public drunkenness is punishable by 40 lashes (how intense of a lash may be a matter of dispute between one end of the whip and the other). Intimate relations between unmarried adults can get you nine lashes, and gambling between 12 and 16. All Muslim women must wear a hijab in public. According to the Shariah Court, 53 cases were heard last year, down from 72 in 2012.
In more extreme (and rare) cases, human rights activists say women have been raped for suspected adultery, and proposals for implementing Shariah law have ranged from forcing women to ride side-saddle on motorbikes to requiring four witnesses to prove a rape.
But it’s important to note that Shariah law is only applied to Muslims; there is little to no threat of foreigners or non-Muslims being subjected to Shariah punishments. If you want a beer at your hotel, you can easily find one. Non-Muslim women can walk freely with their heads uncovered (except in a mosque).
The bottom line is that the imposition of Shariah was a cynical political ploy — and it worked. There were, and are, no wild-eyed fanatics seeking to impose their religious laws on other faiths. There is no Taliban running amok, guns blazing. Here, at least, Shariah mostly works in a democratic context, however imperfectly.
Back in America, a handful of states have moved to ban “foreign laws” from the courts — and by “foreign laws” they really mean Shariah. That, too, is a cynical political ploy designed to rally the base and alienate the opposition.
Too often, when we talk about Islam, we overlap religion with politics, or we see Islam through the distorted lens of Middle East turmoil or puritanical Arab culture. Still reeling from the trauma of 9/11, we project our own fears and misconceptions onto others, sometimes for our own purposes (political or otherwise).
Let’s be clear: Islam has its share of problems, as does Shariah. But often what we try to ban is the very same thing we do not understand. We see things in extremes, and fail to consider political, cultural or historical factors that shape the current context. When you pull back the veil a bit, you may be surprised by what you find.
The full article is available here
