Australia’s most prestigious law school accommodates two courses which call for elements of sharia law to be incorporated in the mainstream legal system — including allowances for polygamy and lowering the age of consent to end opposition to child marriage. The courses also chide judges who denounce Muslim values during sentencing.
Sydney University’s Muslim Minorities And The Law course uses a textbook which promotes the idea that “sharia and common law are not inherently incompatible”, the Daily Telegraph reports. It is taught by Professors Salim Farrar and Dr Ghena Krayem.
“They are both ‘law’ in the sense they represent and communicate a set of ‘norms’ that operate at both individual and a community level,” the book explains. A portion of the textbook identifies the benefits of ending monogamous relationships and notes how sharia law does not recognise the minimum age in marriage.
“There is no minimum age for a contract of marriage, but it should not be consummated if that would cause harm to the putative spouse,” the book reads. “Whilst some have argued that there may be reasons for changing marriage laws to include polygamous marriages… there have not been any proposals for any legislative amendment proposed by the Muslim communities in our Common Law jurisdictions.”
As to the need for Western society to accommodate traditional Islamic views on a host of issues, the textbook pleads for special treatment for Muslims before the courts.
“Where found guilty of transgressing Western values, for example in gender equality, or violating national security, courts have clearly communicated their denunciation of ‘traditional’ or conservative Muslim values when sentencing, dispensing exemplary sentences and announcing aggravating factors, even when the written law does not explicitly demand it.”
The revelation comes at the same time a leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah has denounced the West for opposing child marriage and urged Muslims to “spread it to the West.”
This is not the first time sharia law has become the focus of debate in a Western country. As Breitbart News reported, Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, has called sharia “the most brutal and extreme system of governance ideology on the face of the Earth. It is misogynistic. It is anti-Semitic. It is anti-infidel. It is anti-gay. It is anti-free speech.”
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