THEY CAN ALWAYS CUT TO THE CHASE:

Iraqis far apart over role of Islam: With a week left to finish Iraq's new constitution, Kurds and Shiites appear to be hardening positions. (Dan Murphy, 8/09/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

[I]n a populist speech to one of two Kurdish regional parliaments over the weekend, Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, who also leads the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) signaled a hardening of his position.

"We will not accept that Iraq's identity is an Islamic one,'' he told them. "There will be no bargaining over our basic rights." He also demanded 65 percent of the revenue from the Kirkuk oil fields, Iraq's second largest, to go to the Kurdish autonomous region, something Shiite leaders say is unacceptable.

Other Kurdish lawmakers in the session demanded a provision be included that promises them a vote on independence within eight years, and warned they might simply declare independence if the constitution doesn't satisfy their demands. This position infuriates Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Arabs, and is seen as a threat by Iran, Syria and Turkey, which have restless Kurdish populations of their own.

Drafting rules require consensus among the committee to put a draft constitution up for a full vote in parliament. That leaves the minority Kurds, who fear Islamic law, in as strong a bargaining position as the majority Shiite Arabs.

"We see a secular constitution as the most important guarantee of individual rights,'' says one Kurdish leader, who asked that his name not be used. "Once too much religious language is in there, we could end up threatened with another dictator."

Though the US has waded into the debate, with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad saying there "can be no compromise" on "equal rights before the law for all Iraqis regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sect," the Shiite political parties insist a much bigger role for Islam is the answer to many of Iraq's ills.

"I don't see where the concern is - all rights are guaranteed under Islam,'' says Saad Jawad Qindeel, the head of political affairs for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two main Shiite parties. "We are willing to meet all stipulations for protecting individual rights, but Islam is a big part of the character of the Iraqi people."

Mr. Qindeel says Shiite parties are willing to compromise - but in ways that are unlikely to satisfy the secular Kurds. He says that they'd prefer that Islam be the "only source" of Iraqi legislation. But they would be willing to live with a constitution that calls Islam "a source" of legislation, if a further stipulation is added: "That no legislation be enacted that violates the basic truths of Islam."

With Sistani apparently weighing in on the issue, the Shiite position on Islam is unlikely to shift.

If they do reach an impasse the Kurds can always declare immediate independence and leave the Shi'ites to create whatever kind of republic they choose to. That would also make it easier for the Shi'ites to impose their will on the Sunni.

MORE:
Iraqi women urge limited sharia in new constitution (Dan Murphy, 8/09/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Asked why they feel that sharia alone isn't enough to protect their rights, Rend Rahim, an Iraqi-American and ambassador to the US who lobbied in exile for regime change here, cut in.

"We don't fear sharia,'' she says. "Islam guarantees rights for women. But what we're concerned about is the arbitrary interpretations'' that could hurt women's rights.

Some interpretations allow for men to beat their wives, give men more inheritance rights than women, and consider a woman's testimony to be worth less than a man's when it comes to legal disputes.

Ms. Rahim says the women are adamant that sharia only be "a" source of law rather than "the" source of law, as Iraq's biggest Shiite political parties want, because it would take the job of religious interpretation out of individuals' hands, and put them into the hands of clerics.

Islamic law aids tsunami widows: In struggles with relatives over inheritances, widows in Aceh have found an unlikely ally: sharia. (Scott Baldauf, 8/09/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

When the tsunami came to sweep away her seaside home, her three children, and her husband, Yuniarti thought that she had lost everything she could possibly lose.

She was wrong. After the disaster, the parents of her late husband took away her car, her motorcycle, and other belongings, telling Yuniarti that they had more right to inherit their son's property than she did as a wife.

They were wrong. According to Islamic law, a widow has greater right to inherit her husband's property. Now, Yuniarti is asserting those rights under Islamic sharia law, a 1,300-year-old legal system that has some surprisingly modern notions of women's empowerment.

"The only way I have is to go to sharia court," says Yuniarti, who claims her husband's family has begun to threaten her after she asked repeatedly for her property back. "I know that I will win the case in Islamic court. My husband's parents are religious people, I hope they will hear the decision of the sharia court and accept it."

In other parts of the Islamic world, from Nigeria to Pakistan and Afghanistan, sharia is regarded as creating as many problems for women as it solves. Sharia has been used to codify harsh sentences such as stoning to death for adultery. But in Indonesia, sharia is seen as a welcome advocate of women's rights in a country where government courts are seen as ineffective and open to corruption.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 9, 2005 12:00 AM