Florida dispute to proceed under Islamic law

November 7, 2011 | 8:31 am
Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Speaking of Shariah and it’s place in American society, a Florida appellate court has ruled that a trial court may use Islamic law to decide a key issue in a case involving a mosque.

In Mansour v. Islamic Education Center, Judge Richard Nielsen had said he was going to apply “Islamic ecclesiastical law,” which I suspect is Shariah. As the St. Petersburg Times reports:

Nielsen limited his use of Islamic law to deciding whether arbitration by an Islamic scholar mediating a dispute between the mosque and ousted trustees followed the teachings of the Koran.

The arbitration itself is in dispute, with mosque officials saying it never took place.

The arbitrator ruled in favor of several men ousted as mosque trustees, a decision that, if upheld, could wrest control of $2.2 million in mosque coffers.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/florida_dispute_to_proceed_under_islamic_law_20111106/

A more detailed report:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/appeals-court-wont-stop-hillsborough-judge-from-considering-islamic-law/1198321

Original Order that was appealed:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51397944/MANSOUR-et-al-v-ISLAMIC-EDUCATION-CENTER-OF-TAMPA-110303-Order-in-Connection-With

it's contract law and Shariah law is part of it! Whoda thunk?

there's contract law in secular law as well. Isn't that good enough for them?

This is a slippery slope. Today we're letting Muslims use Shariah law to settle a contract dispute. Thankfully the Muslims (in particular the radical religious ones) don't have much power in the US. Tomorrow it might affect you. What if the Christians want the same thing some day and want to apply Canon law in the supreme court. Right now, 7 out of 9 of the Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic, for instance. If we don't speak up now it might only be a matter of time before our rights are affected.

GHASSAN MANSOUR, ABBAS HASHEMI AND HAMID FARAJI,
collectively as the Trustees of the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, Inc., and ISLAMIC EDUCATION CENTER OF TAMPA, INC., a non profit corporation,
PLAINTIFFS,
vs.
ISLAMIC EDUCATION CENTER OF TAMPA, INC., a nonprofit corporation,
DEFENDANT.

This action was filed in 2008 to resolve issues relating to the corporate governance of the Islamic Education Center ... The dispute began in the early 2000s, but was exacerbated by disagreement concerning control of the cash proceeds from an eminent domain settlement ...

Shortly before the scheduled trial the plaintiff filed Plaintiffs' Emergency Motion to Enforce Arbitrator's Award claiming that the litigation should be concluded in line with the decision of an arbitrator. The Plaintiff sought an emergency hearing on the motion in view of the impending trial. Prior to the motion the court was not aware of any arbitration pending between the parties ...

The IEC is governed by a “constitution” drafted by an Islamic A’lim ...

... The IEC constitution provides that a Resident A’lim has veto power over the board of trustees. The IEC constitution also provides in paragraph 5.2.2 that the Resident A’lim is to guide the IEC “to insure adherence to Islamic laws” ...

The A’lim is also to provide judgment on matters of conflict referred to him by the board ...

... The testimony taken at the initial hearing established that in Islam the Quran provides that two or more brothers who have a dispute are first required to try to resolve the dispute among themselves. If that does not occur they can agree to present the dispute to the greater community of brothers within the mosque or the Muslim community. If that is not done or the dispute is not resolved then it is presented to an Islamic judge, an A’lim ...

From the outset of learning of the purported arbitration award, the court’s concern has been whether there were ecclesiastical principles for dispute resolution involved that would compel the court to adopt the arbitration decision without considering state law. Decisional case law both in Florida and the United States Supreme Court tells us that ecclesiastical law controls certain relations between members of a religious organization ...

For example, in Franzen v. Poulos, 604 So. 2d 1260 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1992), the court found that the trial court could not intervene in an internal church governance dispute ...

Based upon the testimony before the court at this time, under ecclesiastical law, pursuant to the Qur'an, Islamic brothers should attempt to resolve a dispute among themselves. If Islamic brothers are unable to do so, they can agree to present the dispute to the greater community of Islamic brothers within the mosque or the Muslim community for resolution. If that is not done or does not result in a resolution of the dispute, the dispute is to be presented to an Islamic judge for determination, and that is or can be an A’lim ...

http://www.fljud13.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Gou70XZCgII%3D&tabid=667&mid=1031

So the judge has taken the POV that, under established case law, certain internal governance disputes, of a religious organization, are to be resolved by internal procedures and that in such cases the state will simply recognize the outcomes of those internal resolutions, rather than attempting to impose some external settlement principles/procedures on the organization

And it seems like the right decision as well.

This is after all a dispute within a group which has established itself, willingly, under Islamic law. No religious law is being imposed on anyone who did not asume it knowingly and explicitly. It's therefore not establishment, merely using the framework of a specific contract. I would expect a church or temple dispute to refer to sectarian precepts too.

Only slight quibble is it may, to my unlawyerly mind at least, leave a pretty tempting appeal for the loser based on Judge Nielsen's likely (my assumption of course) limited experience in "Islamic ecclesiastical law". It should not be difficult to find a Qadi who disagrees with whatever ruling he comes up with.