On October 31st, 2015, KARAMAH participated at the Fletcher School at Tufts University conference on “Religion, Law & Diplomacy.” The conference brought together academics, practitioners, and religious leaders to demonstrate the role that religion plays across a myriad of issues spanning conflict to civic engagement to identity.
KARAMAH executive director, Aisha Rahman, spoke at the conference on the panel of “Rights and the State.” Ms. Rahman started her presentation by giving background about KARAMAH:
“KARAMAH works from an educational core because we believe that knowledge of religion—namely Islam—will cure many social ills that plague our society today. Islam needs to be revived. It is unfortunate that gender equity and religious freedom were celebrated 1400 years ago in the Islamic tradition and that has eroded over time. This tradition is one that KARAMAH is highlighting through our research and the work of our Jurist and Leaders Network (“JLN”).”
To make relevant to the students at Fletcher the nexus between religion and the state, Ms. Rahman then turned to case studies. “The narrative not often told is that the misinformation and misinterpretation of Islam in American courts has directly impacted the anti-Muslim sentiment that has lead to the profiling and marginalization of American Muslim communities.” Ms. Rahman shared with the conference two family law cases in the United States. In both cases, supposed experts in Islamic law, errantly testified about Islam’s views on domestic violence and the Islamic marriage contract. The public at large used this testimony for two purposes: first, to show, inaccurately, that Islamic law was being “used” in American courts and second, to bolster their biased understanding of Islam and Muslims. Ms. Rahman clarified that the expert testimony used in both cases was first used as circumstantial evidence not as the controlling law of the case. Second, because the testimony was factually incorrect, the result was catastrophic—these cases were the precursors to the anti-Shariah bills movement that many states in the US continue to struggle with today. To read more about these case studies, click here.
Ms. Rahman closed her remarks at the conference by discussing the state of religious freedom and the state, particularly the United States. The rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States has directly impacted the civil rights and civil liberties of American Muslims. Ms. Rahman cited several instances of this including, but not limited to, the denial of zoning ordinances for mosques, the denial of zoning ordinances for Muslim cemetaries, the recall of social studies textbooks in middles schools that discuss Islam, and the basic denial of constitutionally protected rights such as no religious tests for candidates of public office. To read more about KARAMAH’s advocacy on these issues, please refer to our most recent submission to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division here.
Ms. Rahman’s remarks, as well as those of her co-panelists, Dr. Nancy Ammerma and Former Ambassador to Denmark and former Congressman (D-NH) Richard Swett, were met with a rousing discussion by students and faculty at Fletcher. To read more about the conference, click here.
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