Whether a court would enforce a contract that incorporates Sharia or some other variety of the law is really a different question, however, and it's answered by a completely different set of legal principles.

Most courts will enforce choice of law provisions if there is a "reasonable relationship" between the law chosen and surrounding circumstances. Thus, for example, if one of the contracting parties is headquartered in Saudia Arabia, that may be enough of a relationship to justify a Texas court in enforcing a contract term requiring the application of Sharia law as used in the Saudi court system, even if the other party to the contract is based in Texas and the contract was mostly performed there, and even in circumstances in which without such a choice of law provision (i.e., in which the parties' contract contained no specification one way or another), the same court might have chosen to apply Texas law.

"Conflicts of laws" -- deciding which forum's substantive law will be used to decide a given dispute -- is a complicated subject to which most law schools devote an entire course. If one were to try to boil it down into a sentence, though, it would be this: "Courts will try to do what seems most reasonable, including giving reasonable deference to enforcing the parties' own freely made choices."

What if one of the parties (like a battered spouse) is intimidated into taking a dispute to Sharia Court...

Sort of. In common law countries, contracts require a "meeting of minds" -- the agreement is what the signatories intended to agree to, not necessarily the words on the page (although the words on the page are taken as strong evidence of what they intended to agree to).

The less understanding and agreement one of the signatories has, the less enforcable the contract. If the parties to the agreement have sat around a table with lawyers and negotiated ever clause of the contract, the courts will almost certainly uphold it (unless it's invalid for other reasons, such as it being a contract to engage in illegal activites). But courts have also refused to enforce licenses that take the form of fine print on a web page saying "by using our site, you agree to our terms and conditions", which is why most sites with terms and conditions they want to enforce now require you to check a box or click a button saying "I Agree". I think these agreements are yet to be tested in court, but I suspect that courts would be sympathetic to the argument that you didn't expect the Sharia Inquisition and that if you'd known it was there you wouldn't have used the site.

IANAL, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

So why the outcry over a reasonable call for parity? Is Islamophobia the new anti-Semitism for the extreme Right?

Regards, C

You don't have to sign, you just click the "I accept all terms and conditions" box on some random website, not noticing the Sharia choice of law clause buried in the middle. ;-( Accept it man, your head is coming off as soon as those guys can get you into court

There are a lot of arbitration cases that are heard today. They don't correspond to the full US legal system rules. We accept that without a blink of an eye. If one of those arbiters just smiled and mentally applied sharia law, no one would ever know.

Now personally, I don't know enough about sharia law to fell comfortable signing such an arbitration agreement.

Of course they can. People can contract to damn near anything, barring the high bar of "unconscionability."

I suppose that unconscionability would address a common objection to freedom of contract, the man who sells himself into slavery. Also, contracts to perform illegal acts are void so is Sharia law (of which I know N-O-T-H-I-N-G) required a similarly crazy result, the agreement would be void to that extent.

IIRC, Orthodox Jews sometimes contract to have a panel of 3 rabbis resolve any dispute according to Talmudic law. What's the difference, besides spoooooooky Muslims?