Religion and Current Social Practices - A dichotomy

Please be careful when claiming that something is an Islamic law:

``As under Islam, in the event of a divorce children are awarded to the father once he/she attains the age of 2.``

Though this is a common practice in certain countries, it is by no means a universal Islamic law. Traditionally, when a couple divorced, custody of the children was awarded to the mother (with the father being given visitation rights) until the children reached the ``age of discernment``. At that time, the children would go to court and choose which parent they wanted to live with (in front of the qadi.) The five schools of Islamic law differ somewhat in their opinions on custody but if one studies cases tried under the Ottoman empire (easier to study because good records available and translated), one finds the above pattern to be a standard. Mothers would be awarded custody but fathers were responsible for child support.

The problem of crime is more complex than that. Not to de-emphasise the `absence of father` in the family as one of the important reasons, I would respectfully disagree that that may be the main reason for increase in crime. Republicans love to point out such studies to distract people from the growing disparities between the rich and the poor. They don`t want to hear that Sweden has far fewer crimes even though they have similar proportion of single mothers raising families.

Don`t get me wrong. I think its morally wrong to deprive a child of the love of both parents. But, and its big BUT, Sweden has one of the most equitable economies in the world. People say its a socialist economy. I think if socialist economy can produce results like that, who needs capitalism?

In other words, the problem of crime is not caused just by the broken family phenomenon, the lack of opportunities, and the absence of hope for a better future, more than anything, causes a a person to react violently in frustration. Add to that mix the lack of social pressure in a typical poverty-ridden slum and you have got yourself plenty of angry young men mad at the society and nothing to lose.

We must understand the magnitude of the problem by realizing that, when I say lack of opportunity, I mean the absence of a proper conducive environment and lack of incentives faced by kids in inner city schools. I invite you to visit any inner city school in any major city of the US and tell me honestly if you can get proper education there.

These schools are mostly rundown buildings saffed with mostly incapable teachers who couldn`t find a spot in a better school. The textbooks, if available, may be decades old. Seldom there are any extra-curricular activities, due to lack of funds mostly, that may give these kids something to do in their spare time. Uncle Sam spends more than $270 billion on defense, and billions more on pork barrel projects. A fraction of this money could cut the crime rate drastically. I mean, do we really need a $50 billion space station so we can study the effects of weightlessness on rats?

Yes we need a father to discipline a child. But what can a father do when his kids ask him about why doesn`t the Santa comes to their house? Why can`t they have proper heating in the winter and eat turkey on thanksgiving? I mean you may think I`m exaggerating but believe it or not about 20 million American children go to bed hungry. And Mr. Gingrich and his collegues wanted to cut the school breakfast program for little children. And then they complain about crime. Give me friggin` a break!

Rehan.