The U.N. Shariah for the Muslim World
By Khalid Baig
The battle against Shariah-based Muslim personal laws in Muslim countries is being
fought from the platform of the U.N. under the banner of "Universal Declaration of
Human Rights."
The U.N. campaign to force the Muslim countries to take back the reservations to many
of its commands regarding personal laws has been going on for some time. (Book Review
"Feminism and Islam"). In December 1997 President Clinton announced that he had
put the promotion of women's rights in the mainstream of American foreign policy. At the
same time, speaking at the United Nations Economic and Social Council Chamber, Mrs.
Clinton took the first steps in challenging the Shariah. "And in too many places
today what we fail to see are the injustices done to women," she said without naming
Islam, but with obvious reference. "In too many places female heirs are seeing less
inheritance than male heirs. Inequitable divorce laws compel women to remain in cruel
marriages. And courts of law require the testimony of two women to equal that of a
solitary man." So the laws of inheritance, marriage, divorce, and testimony of a
Muslim country are now to be dictated by the U.S.
Make no mistake about it. The First Lady was serious. The "rights" she was
talking about were based on ethical laws that were "higher than the laws of even
kings." Not only that. "The principles inscribed in the document whose birth we
mark today [The controversial Universal Declaration of Human Rights] are not constructed,
but revealed. Every great religion exposed and taught their truth." It may be quite
revealing to note that her "revealed principles" include the rights of
homosexuals to continue their abominable practices, as she mentioned in the same speech.
First Ladies do come with lecturing rights. After the glorious failure of her domestic
health reform, the First Lady has taken up the safer cause of women and families in the
world. And she is not alone. On a clear day one can see an endless number of experts of
all sizes in the U.S. (and Europe) lecturing the Muslim world on how to manage its family
lives. But there is something out of place with this picture. It reminds one of the
chauffeur of the well known Pakistani judge and satirist, the late Justice M.R. Kayani.
According to Kayani, his chauffeur used to dispense free advice on treating asthma to
anyone who visited him. That is, whenever he got respite from his own asthma attacks!
Just a few months ago, President Clinton had convened a big conference of leaders from
all over the country to handle the problem of 15 million at-risk youth in the U.S. Today
every other child in the U.S. is born out of wedlock. Thirty-eight percent of children now
live without a biological father. 6.6 million children live with divorced single parents,
mostly mothers whose ex-husbands tend to fade away from their children. Twenty percent of
children in the United States, ages 6-12, have not had a 10 minute conversation with a
parent in a month. Their conversation is with TV, which acts as their mother, father,
baby-sitter, and teacher. By the time they are teens, children have seen an estimated
18,000 violent murders on TV. This is family life USA. "Something is wrong with the
entire American family," writes Martin Marty, professor at the University of Chicago
in the Los Angles Times. "One has the weird sense that America is a country with many
children but without adults."
In these homes child abuse, parent abuse, and spouse abuse are common. The single
largest cause of injuries to American women is beatings by husbands and boy friends. The
home, as the Surgeon general report indicated some time ago, has become the most dangerous
place for the American women. Outside, there is a pandemic of sexual harassment. No place,
from the lowest to the highest office in the country seems to be immune from it. Probably
the First Lady has heard about Paula Jones.
Perhaps the greatest irony of this century is that a civilization that has put a nude
or semi-nude picture of a woman on every square inch of available space, is giving
lectures on the status of women to the civilization that treats them with dignity and
respect. The greatest tragedy at the end of this century may be that the civilization that
has totally messed up and destroyed the family life is now getting ready to dictate to the
civilization that still has family life intact, on how to arrange its family affairs.
The contrast between the two could not have been starker. One gives the wife the right
to be financially supported by her husband. The other takes away that right. One
establishes a home with distinct roles for father, mother, and children. The other calls
those roles a relic of the past and destroys the home along with them. One promotes haya,
the other kills it. One promises peace and tranquility in this life and success in the
hereafter. The other promises fun here but delivers nothing but misery here and the
prospect of greater misery in the hereafter.
Why one should be forced to listen to dictates by the other?
Unfortunately, Muslim countries have brought this mess upon themselves by failing to
stand up and speak out. While opposition to the 1994 Cairo Conference, where the agenda
for this phase of the U.N. plan was first revealed, was strong among the Muslim masses,
practical steps to check this agenda were not taken. While Saudi Arabia and Lebanon
boycotted the conference, the OIC failed to take a unified stand. Subsequently the
dictates of the U.N. plan (under the name of Social Action plan) have been followed by
submissive or corrupt governments in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh and elsewhere. In
Pakistan 40,000 young girls have already been recruited and put into service who can go to
men and women, condoms in hand, and persuade them to use them. The plan is now to increase
the number to 100,000. Contraceptive ads litter the entire landscape including the mini
screen. Propaganda that human beings are a burden and the fewer the better has been
carried out with such a force that no organized opposition to this fraud is anywhere in
sight. At the Tehran Conference the OIC again failed to show any awareness of the
magnitude of threat facing it today.
Muslim countries must make up their mind whether they will follow the revealed truth of
the Islamic Shariah or the "revealed principles" of the "shariah" of
rebellion against God, that are being impose upon them. If their governments do not do it,
then the private organizations must take up the battle.
Women & Family