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Canada’s legal system now recognizes an Islamic tribunal that Ontario Muslims have set up to arbitrate legal disputes between Muslims. The tribunal follows Qu’ran-based sharia, or Islamic law, to guide its decisions.

Some Canadian Christians maintain that Christians should welcome and support sharia arbitration because it promotes religious freedom. But the move leaves other Christians, non-Christians and at least some of Canada’s approximately 500,000 Muslims with questions and fears for what sharia arbitration could bring to Canadians.

By law in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, people may agree to adjudicate disputes by binding arbitration. The business community uses it it to settle contract issues, but it can also be used to resolve disputes between neighbors. Arbitrators have broad powers to decide their own jurisdiction and process.

Janet Buckingham, director of law and public policy and general legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s Centre for Religious Freedom in Ottawa, explained how it works:

Two parties agree to arbitration and may select the arbitrator of their choice to decide a dispute—and now the options include the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (ICJ), Ontario’s Muslim arbitration tribunal. A higher court will only hear ruling appeals on the narrow issue of whether a ruling conflicts with Ontario law. If it does not, it is enforceable as a court order.

“Normally, if you have a trial and a court decision, you can appeal on a broader range of issues,” for example, whether the decision is right, Buckingham said. “When you have arbitration, you cannot actually appeal because you agreed to the arbitration and that it is binding.”

Ontario’s courts must uphold decisions by this and other government-recognized arbitration tribunals. If parties in a dispute voluntarily agree to enter this arbitration, the Islamic tribunal’s rulings are enforceable by Canadian provincial and federal courts.

The ICJ will use Qu’ranic principles to decide will, contract and custody disputes. Since the tribunal will not arbitrate criminal law, women will not be stoned for committing adultery as prescribed by sharia.

Buckingham welcomes the tribunal. She invites others to as well.

“Christians should support this voluntary approach to recognizing religious traditions and their application to resolving disputes,” Buckingham said. “As the definition of marriage is being fundamentally changed in Canada, Christians may soon wish to follow the lead of the Islamic community and establish our own arbitration board to resolve disputes among Christians. Already, there are Christian mediators and mediation groups. This is just the next logical step.”

But concerns abound. Many of them center on women’s rights under sharia. The director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, Alia Hogben, wonders why this tribunal should settle such disputes when Canada’s legal system already does so. “Who will represent the rights of women?” Hogben asks. Others fear that Muslim women married to conservative Muslim men will be forced to enter this arbitration, and that Muslims who convert to Christianity could be unfairly treated as sharia law gives preference to Muslims over non-Muslims. Under sharia, sons get twice the inheritance a daughter receives.

Buckingham says that her greatest concern is Muslim women who convert. They could lose their children if they agree to Islamic arbitration as a pre-nuptial or other agreement. “This means that this agreement will likely be binding as it is very hard to change,” she said. Bucking-ham adds, however, that Canadian courts are sensitive to women’s rights “and it seems unlikely that courts would enforce arbitration awards that give women no rights, custody or access, with respect to their children.”

She also has reservations about the expressed motives of those who initiated the arbitration board. In a 1995 interview, Syed Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, made clear that he is lobbying for the Canadian and provincial governments to provide separate provisions that allow Muslims in Canada to be ruled by Muslim personal law. This includes adoption, divorce and inheritance laws. “The ICJ is therefore the first step in a larger agenda,” Buckingham said. “These initiatives should be watched closely as they could have negative implications, particularly for Muslims who convert to Christianity.”

Others—including several Canadian newspapers—question how two sometimes contradictory legal systems can operate in one country. “My concerns are that if there is a conflict of law that we will end up in huge legal deliberations that could bring exceptional challenges,” said Paul Johnson, director of Open Doors Canada. “This is a complex issue that has been under discussion for a long period of time by highly qualified individuals. The challenge is the potential conflicts that arise when another standard of law is being introduced as the basis of decision. If so, what mechanism will be previously in place to deal with the issues?”

Elizabeth Kendal, the Australia-based principal researcher and writer for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, fears the worst from sharia’s introduction into Canada. “Not all [religious] traditions are honorable, and some are even seriously abusive and violent and destructive,” she said.

Full sharia—including amputations of thieves’ hands and public executions for other crimes—is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia and had been the law in Afghanistan before the Taliban government was overthrown in October 2001. Other countries such as Pakistan have adopted partial sharia. About a third of Nigerian states have imposed sharia. In March, conservative Muslims rallied and prayed in support of imposing sharia in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic country.

Asked whether Christians should welcome Islamic law in Canada, Kendal said, “I believe that Christians should not support sharia because sharia actually denies religious freedom and discriminates against non-Muslims and women. We should be intolerant of intolerance, and we should discriminate against discriminatory practice. We should stand for freedom and justice for all, regardless of their race, creed, gender or age. Multitudes of Muslims in the West want this freedom and justice.”

Kendal notes that Muslims who have fled west to escape sharia oppression are finding it is following closely behind. Not only are sharia arbitration tribunals now recognized in Canada, but sharia is also being practiced illegally in Europe. She fears that the arbitration court is the opening of the door to further imposition of Islamic law in Canada. “Why should it stop at family matters? If sharia is needed for family matters, then surely it is needed for criminal matters as well,” she said.

One Canadian Christian leader, who spoke under condition of strict anonymity, said that Canada now has “hate speech” laws that punish with prison time those who publicly voice anything deemed offensive about a religious or ethnic group. This leader says these laws have likely tempered the voices of Christians who otherwise might be outspoken against sharia arbitration in Ontario.

Buckingham notes that many Canadian Christians had immediate concerns about the ICJ because sharia law is notorious in Islamic countries for being dramatic and barbaric, as sharia punishments such as stoning and amputations are abhorrent to Canada’s legal system. “But the ICJ has very limited application and is totally voluntary,” she said. “Christians should monitor the development of the ICJ to ensure there are not abuses.”

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EMQ articles on Muslims and Ministry to Muslims are available for reading online at www.billygrahamcenter.org/emis/muslimarticles.html.