Washington:
Before 14-year-old Ahmad Mohammad was arrested by police in Irving, Texas, after bringing in a homemade clock to school, the national spotlight shone on the Dallas suburb as its officials warned about Sharia courts.
It began with a February Facebook post by Mayor Beth Van Duyne responding to stories about a Muslim mediation panel comprised of arbitrators settling civil disputes using Sharia in non-binding decisions, with reports that the panel was located in an Irving mosque. Van Duyne began referring to the tribunal as a “court” and warned that foreign law can’t be applied when it “violates public policy, statutory, or federal laws.”
“Sharia Court was not approved or enacted by the City of Irving,” she wrote, adding: “Our nation cannot be so overly sensitive in defending other cultures that we stop protecting our own. The American Constitution and our guaranteed rights reigns supreme in our nation and may that ever be the case.”
Van Duyne’s comments attracted national media attention.
In March, she asked her city council to vote to endorse a Texas bill that forbids judges in family law cases from using foreign laws if they violate constitutional or state protection. Critics said the bill unfairly targeted Muslims. Irving’s mosque “categorically” denied hosting a court, stating that its imam acted as an arbitrator on a tribunal in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
“Similar religious tribunals have existed for decades in the American Jewish and American Christian faith communities to resolve disputes, most especially within families,” reads an Islamic Centre of Irving statement. “These religious tribunals are optional arbitration vehicles that only conduct their work when requested to do so by both parties involved in a dispute, do not attempt to impose any belief system upon any individual and work in compliance with State of Texas and US law under the United States Constitution.”
For some, the episode demonstrated the need for a tough-talking official to stand up for the US Constitution against dangerous, international influences. For others, Irving became a reminder of Islamphobia in post 9/11-America.
So it is, once again, for Irving, where a Muslim ninth-grader’s arrest has prompted widespread outrage. The city, some 15 miles from Dallas, has a small, but growing Muslim population of thousands making up the city’s 232,000 residents. The main mosque, the Islamic Center of Irving, has been expanding at such a rate that rumour has it that plans for a new, smaller mosque are now in the works.
— Washington Post
