Muslim groups attack findings on sharia
RACHEL BAXENDALE
March 04, 2013 12:00AM
MUSLIM groups have criticised the findings of a forthcoming parliamentary report on multiculturalism that denounces Islamic law and polygamous marriages.
Federation of Islamic Councils assistant secretary Keysar Trad said the report's findings, revealed in The Australian's Sunday edition yesterday, showed a "continued misunderstanding" of sharia .
"Sharia is just a term that applies to all religious practices, including being good neighbours and citizens," he said.
"We are able to practice everything sharia demands in accordance with Australian law," he said.
Mr Trad, who is known for his defence of polygamy, said the illegality of polygamous marriage would not prevent plural relationships.
"Aware that Australian law prohibits polygamy, they know a second wife could never be official. But their religion allows a man four wives and though a lot of what they say to each other about polygamy amounts to teasing, there is also a serious thread. It was Hanifeh who first raised it, approvingly, before they married"
Read the rest of the Trad's belief's below.
"Marriage is traditionally something under God, not a secular system," he said.
"People can enjoy all the rights and privileges of a couple without having to be married under Australian law.
" If people want to be involved in a plural relationship, that's their concern."
Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia chairman Pino Migliorino called on both parties to depoliticise the issue, and focus on the economic value of various diasporas and skill sets provided by immigration.
"This is an area which can degenerate into politics of fear," he said.
"The criminal dregs of white society colonised this country, (Australia) and now, they only
take the select choice of other societies, and the descendants of these criminal
dregs tell us that they are better than us. And because we are not elitists, we
tolerate them.(Muslims TOLERATE Australians) Yet they want us to assimilate, perhaps they will only become
satisfied when we each die our hair red, wear blue/green contact lenses, and
operate a fish and chips shop, otherwise, we would not be truly assimilating,
would we?
"As for those whose souls the angels took while still they were wronging
themselves - the angels said, "in what were you engaged?" They said, "We were weak
in the land." They said: "was not Allah's earth spacious, so that you might have
emigrated in it?" So for those, their abode is hell, and it is a bad destination."
By Br. Keysar Trad
