Judges question use of Quran in taking oath

June 18, 2005

GREENSBORO — All Syidah Mateen wanted was to give Muslim witnesses the chance to be sworn in on the Quran before testifying in Guilford County courtrooms.

Update: Judge’s statements spark controversy
The decision to deny the use of the Quran for oaths of a Washington-based Islamic civil rights group.

But an attempt by the Greensboro Islamic center to donate copies of the Muslim holy text last week sparked a legal debate that has left state court officials scrambling to decide whether to allow the practice.

Officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts in Raleigh are trying to come up with a statewide policy on the issue before news of the controversy sparks a large outcry, spokesman Dick Ellis said.

The AOC will pose the question to the state’s judges as they confer this week at judicial conferences in Asheville and Wrightsville Beach, Ellis said.

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Albright (News & Record file photo)

“We’ll take the input of the judges and bring it together and try to come up with an answer that pleases most people and follows the law,” he said.

That move came after the AOC received queries on the issue last week from Guilford court officials and the News & Record.

An AOC lawyer’s preliminary opinion last week said that state law allows people to be sworn in using a Quran rather than a Bible, Ellis said. But that conflicts with the view of top Guilford County judges, who told officials with the Islamic center Friday that they won’t allow the practice in their courtrooms.

“An oath on the Quran is not a lawful oath under our law,” Guilford Senior Resident Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Albright said earlier in the week. He sets policy for the county’s nine Superior Court courtrooms.

Friday’s news disappointed Mateen, who said she planned to pursue the issue further.

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Read North Carolina state law about oaths

“This is a diverse world, and everybody does not worship or believe the same,” she said. “We’ll just have to get in touch with the right people and determine our next move.”

As the number of Muslim faithful continues to grow in North Carolina, observers say the issue appears ripe for the legislature or the courts to solve.

But it seems no one has ever formally challenged the state’s oath-taking practices, which date to 1777 but have evolved over the years.

“We are not aware of any courtroom that has ever allowed anybody to swear on anything but the Bible,” Ellis said.

North Carolina’s laws mirror those of other states.

Muslims, and anyone else who may object to swearing on the Bible, have other options to taking an oath. They can raise their hand and give an affirmation to tell the truth, which is treated the same by law.

State law requires everyone who testifies to swear or affirm to tell the truth. But Mateen worries that people might consider her testimony less credible if they see her unwilling to swear on a holy text — even though it is against the law for them to take that stance.

“I think just by saying you wouldn’t swear on something people might look at you weird and say, ‘Yeah, she’s going to lie,’ ” she said.

The issue surfaced for Mateen two years ago, when she came in front of Guilford District Judge Tom Jarrell. When she was asked to swear on the Bible before testifying in a domestic violence protective order hearing, the 40-year-old Greensboro woman asked Jarrell if there was a Quran.

“I was actually shocked that they didn’t have any,” she said.

She was allowed to testify after giving an affirmation to tell the truth, but the issue never left her mind.

Mateen recalls Jarrell telling her that day that all the courtrooms needed copies of the Quran.

Jarrell disagrees. He said he only told her he would look into the legality of such oaths if she wanted to bring a Quran in the future.

Mateen eventually went forward with her idea — believing Jarrell approved. She got the backing of the Al-Ummil Ummat Islamic Center, which her late father established, to donate about 10 copies of the Quran to the county’s courthouses.

The center’s imam, Charles Abdullah, working through a judicial assistant, was prepared to hand over the Qurans last week.

“We do feel like it has some historical significance,” Abdullah said. “We didn’t want to make a big fanfare out of it.”

But Jarrell said he was unaware of the donation until a reporter contacted him last week. He deferred any decision to the judges that set courtroom policy, and a meeting was postponed.

On Friday, Guilford Chief District Judge Joseph E. Turner said he told Abdullah that he could not accept the Qurans for the courtrooms.

But Turner asked whether Abdullah would donate a copy of the Quran to the law libraries in the county’s two courthouses, and Abdullah agreed, he said.

Turner oversees policy for the county’s 12 District Court courtrooms.

Both Turner and Albright said the language in the law — which refers at one point to laying one’s hand on the “Holy Scriptures” — precludes someone from being sworn using the Quran.

Albright said he has nothing against other holy books, but he believes the statute is clear.

“Everybody understands what the holy Scriptures are,” he said. “If they don’t, we’re in a mess.”

AOC officials disagreed with that interpretation last week.

The law requires a person to fear both spiritual and temporal punishment if his testimony is false, and swearing on the Quran would satisfy that, Ellis said.

But AOC officials would rather Muslims give an affirmation instead of bringing another holy text into the mix, Ellis said.

State officials worry that would open the door to more problems. For example, Ellis asked, what if a person says they worship brick walls and should be allowed to swear on a brick?

“We don’t want to complicate this simple procedure here,” Ellis said.

Jarrell, the judge in Mateen’s original case, said he’s always been concerned about the utility of having atheists or non-Christians swearing an oath on the Bible.

“They might as well be swearing on a Sears catalog,” he said.

If allowing people to swear on the Quran helps him get to the truth, Jarrell said, he has no problem with it. But he said he’ll follow courthouse policy.

Though any judge could act alone to allow Muslims to be sworn using the Quran, such maverick behavior is typically frowned upon by the state’s judicial elite.

Last year a district judge who presided in counties including Davidson and Iredell asked court officials to remove references to God when he entered the courtroom or during oaths. The chief justice of the state Supreme Court called Judge James M. Honeycutt’s decision “deplorable,” and the court eventually ordered him to reverse his policy.

For his part, Abdullah expressed surprise that the donation of Qurans could spark such an uproar.

“It’s going to be interesting in how this evolves,” he said. “We were just trying to do a good deed.”