Minute with a Muslim #078 – My Experience With Sharia In Saudi Arabia

You know, it's it's so ironic because people think of Sharia law or Sharia. And they think that it's something that's harsh and barbaric, and inflexible and backwards and these sorts of things. In reality, it's much more barbaric and harsh and punitive the system of law that we have right now. And I'll give you an example. Because when it comes to shove, it actually is not just about the laws that are on the books and the punishments, right. That's where everybody's mind goes, like, Oh, my God, you're going to, oh, you're gonna whip somebody, you're going to do this to them, you're gonna do that to them. The city is also about the procedures, and it's about what is resorted to first and

within the Cydia arbitration is always preferred over litigation. Okay, so we have all these different mechanisms to try to encourage people to sort out their problems before it gets to the level of litigation. I give an example that some of this still exists in some of the Muslim countries in Saudi Arabia. I got in a car accident one time, right. And I was freaking out just because, you know, if you break the law, you getting to legal trouble in another country, you don't really know how it happens over there. What's What can possibly happen to you? So I'm going to try to throw me in jail, I don't know. And so I show up to their version of the DMV, and the other

person who was part of the accident, you know, like, like, he he comes. And I was shocked, because we got a ticket, we stood in line, then the guy was like, Alright, you guys go outside, and you agree to something. I was like, Wait a second, what? If we go outside and agreed something we stood outside? We had a conversation, you know, he said about how much it's gonna cost him to fix it or whatever. And we eventually agreed to whatever we came back, it's like you agree, you agree, done, no judge, no jury, no fine, no anything, just me and him as human beings as fellow Muslims sorting it out that ethos is completely from the city, right? This idea that we don't have to raise

everything to the level of litigation. We don't have to raise everything to the level of a courtroom, we should be able to sort out our problems without getting the law involved, and all the punishments and all these sorts of things, right. We're not trying to squeeze everybody in the you know, for everything that they're worth. And the Sharia is concerned with people's redemption, right? It wants people to be redeemed, it wants people to change their lives around. It doesn't want to punish them for eternity. And people forget this when they get fixated on sort of the corporal punishments that exist that hey, if I get 70 lashes for something, I walk home to my children and to

my wife, and I'm done. What happens here, if I'm a felon, I'm locked away for years, my pet, my children are punished for it. My wife is punished for it. My family is punished for it. When I come out. I can't have all the jobs that I used to have. I can't vote, I can't travel. I can't even leave the country, right? Which system is barbaric? Again, which system is harsh again, which system treats people like they can redeem themselves and get better? And which system just closes the book and says, You know what, it's over for you. You're going to be stamped with this for the rest of your life. Sharia is a much more merciful. It's a much more flexible, and it's a much more humane

system of law than anything the world has ever seen.