Mamdouh Bitar, Ruba Mansour
There is no doubt about the great importance of personal status laws for citizens. The importance of these laws far outweighs that of laws related to foreign policy, endowments, the economy, tourism, or other matters. Here, it must be noted that the origin of personal status laws was the 1953 Constitution, and the origin of the 1953 Constitution was the Ottoman Constitution of 1917. All the amendments and developments that occurred after that, for example, in 2010, were not sufficient, while the bad ones were destructive or disastrous. As a result of religious legislative provisions relating to engagement, marriage, its conditions, its contract, follow-up, alimony, nullity, dissolution, termination of marriage, custody, inheritance, guardianship, etc., Syria has dozens of personal status laws. The traditions and customs of the clergy have been transformed into rules and regulations that regulate the most important aspects of human life, such as marriage and family formation. Personal status has become a game in the hands of the clergy and their whims. In Christianity, there is no legislation. Even worse than the blessing of the absence of religious legislation, there was legislation in the Muhammadan religions. Here, life and its organization have moved away from man-made laws, and have been thrown into the lap of whims, demagoguery, and ancient stone-based legislation, which, even before 1440, were contrary to the logic of that ancient era and even to the moral values of that time. Believers were placed in the hands of the Hanafi school and its rulings. Not only that, but everyone who did not adhere to the true religion was also placed in the hands of the clerics of those groups. For example, approximately 150 Hebrews now have their own court, managing their personal status affairs, despite their very small number. For believers, Sharia has become something resembling unchanging, unevolving, and unchanging positive law—that is, legislation that is 1,440 years old. In other words, a regression, by the standard of time, of approximately 1,440 years. Thus, legislation has reverted to the brutality of crude, licentious masculinity, which was on its way to death. It was picked up and put on life support. After its resuscitation, the beast of legislation transformed into devouring, predatory, and the consecration of masculinity and the humiliation of women, who remained, as females, biological beings. Under Sharia, women were unable to transform into women—that is, into social beings. Sharia law requires that marriage contracts be concluded in the presence of sane, believing witnesses, i.e. two male witnesses, or a man and two women, or four women. There is no need for much intelligence to understand that a woman’s testimony is considered equal to half that of a man. Even some minor amendments later did not affect the equivalence of a man’s testimony, which is equal in credibility to the testimony of two women. All of this, knowing that female judges have existed for a considerable period of time. Isn’t it logical in this case that a female judge would be equivalent to half that of a male judge according to Sharia law? Now, the Editorial and Reporting Board has abolished the role of women in the judiciary, and it is no wonder that this board has abolished law schools in universities for women… which is equivalent in its enormity to banning women from university studies. Which countries in the world prohibit women from practicing the judicial profession? Perhaps Afghanistan and similar countries… This is the level of decadence that the country has reached! The pillars of this humiliating farce still exist, even a hundred years after the birth of the Syrian state. The farce-tragedy is becoming increasingly horrific. Family planning remains languishing in the Ottoman-Muhammadan prison. Triple divorce remains in effect. Polygamy, abolished in Turkey, remains in effect in Syria. There is still an article stipulating the sanctity of marriage and lineage due to breastfeeding. There are still farcical details regarding breastfeeding an adult. The marriage of a believing woman to a non-believing man remains invalid until the non-believing party converts to Islam. In accordance with Sharia law, the monstrous condition of a dowry remains. The insistence on transforming love marriage into a slave trade and a paid marriage, i.e., a brothel, persists. Women are still considered incapable of representing themselves in the marriage contract bazaar. The man represents himself, and the woman is represented by an agent. A woman’s work outside the home still requires the consent of the man, while a man’s work does not. The list is several degrees longer than what has been mentioned. The developments in the Personal Status Law towards more Sharia and less civil law represent a civilizational regression and decline that was expected in the context of the awakening of the recent Muslim Brotherhood conflict. There is no future for this law, no future for the article on the religion of the state and the religion of the head of state, no future for the continued consideration of Sharia as one of the main sources of law, no future for religious education in schools, no future for the monsters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and no future for the monster of Sharia!