In the spring of 2019, social media users commenced sharing memes and messages that celebrated the nation of North Carolina’s purported choice to “ban Sharia law” and render it a “criminal offense.”
The text of the memes typically followed one among formulas: “North Carolina has banned Islamic Sharia law and regard [sic] it as a crook because it should be … allow’s make [the ban] nationwide!”
“North Carolina has banned Islamic ‘Sharia regulation’ inside the nation, regarding it now as a crook offense.”
In 2013, North Carolina’s national legislature did skip a law that prohibited country courts from applying “foreign law” — which implicitly included Sharia, the Islamic machine of jurisprudence — in own family-law topics.
It did no longer declare or designate Sharia “a criminal offense,” a designation that might make no experience anyways due to the fact Sharia is a religiously based felony device, not a discrete act. Furthermore, the regulation became exceeded almost six years before a wave of social media postings, which many customers understood to be describing the latest activities.
In July 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly voted seventy five-37 to ratify House Bill 522, a regulation that prohibited courts and different state our bodies from making use of “overseas regulation” in family-regulation subjects along with divorce and infant-custody instances. The text of the bill examines:
Critics of the law characterized it as being useless, due to the fact North Carolina courts had not been called upon to use Sharia regulation standards within the first area, as nicely being prompted by using an anti-Muslim sentiment.
Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory opposed HB 522 however did now not veto it, and the bill has become regulation in August 2013, going into impact the subsequent month.
The memes that spread on social media in March and April 2019 absolutely had a foundation, in fact, however, had been woefully missing in context. HB 522 did now not criminalize Sharia, nor even limit its use through courts in all circumstances. Rather, the 2013 law barred stated courts and agencies from making use of “overseas regulation” (which would consist of Sharia) in divorce, child custody, and other own family-law disputes.
That fact becomes lots extra nuanced than the memes that proclaimed “North Carolina has banned Islamic ‘Sharia law’ in the state, regarding it now as a criminal offense.” Those memes also failed to inform readers that the regulation in question was exceeded in 2013, almost six years before the wave of social media sharing inside the spring of 2019.
