Dinner with Sheikh Qadhi Natur Ahmad

Our dinner, on a Saturday after a walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, included a distinguished guest, Sheikh Qadhi Natur Ahmad, President of the High Shari'a (Islamic justice) Court of Appeals in Israel. Our guest shared insights into a system of Islamic law, where the Holy Quran is the highest legal document ("our Constitution"), and clashes with Israeli civil law and western concepts of "justice" are common. The Sheikh's positions were based on a system of justice operating within the Muslim communities of Israel. The challenges of operating the Shari'a Court in a Jewish state, including "court shopping," by litigants who must consent to participation in the Shari'a Court, difficulties with getting the authorities to enforce the Court's judgments, and conflict between Islamic and civil law, are considerable.

My personal impression is that Shari'a seems ossified. I'd much prefer a system of justice where justice in the abstract sense--the equal distribution of good, and equal protection from harm--is the overall object, and the specifics of legal interpretation evolve as society's understanding of human nature evolves. Faced with the sincere, respectful, and even kindly way that our guest presented positions that I considered unkind and manifestly unjust, though, I'm struck with how difficult it is for a traditional culture, devoted to conservatism--preserving a historically articulated point of view--to accept a liberalism based on first principles.

Notably, we also learned of an Anti-Defamation League news release, about a controversy in Israel surrounding the construction of a museum of tolerance on a historical Muslim graveyard site. We heard that there was bound to be controversy over the release, as the next day's news articles confirmed.