Palestine has three notable religions and they are Islam, Christianity, and Druze. However, Islam is the most practiced religion do to the fact that seventy-five percent of Palestinians are Muslim. Islam has a few common denominations like Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Alawi Islam, Wahabi Islam, and Sufi Islam. However, majority of muslims practice Sunni or Shia Islam, but in Palestine the majority of muslims practice Sunni Islam. Seventeen percent of Palestinians are Christiand and the remaining eight percent of the population is Druze.
The Palestinian Basic Law states that all, “Palestinians are equal before the law and the judiciary, without distinction based upon race, sex, color, religion, political views or disability" and that, “ Freedom of belief, worship and the performance of religious functions are guaranteed." Though the Palestinian Basic Law implies that Palestine is pretty accepting of their citizens practicing religion, this is not necessarily true. If one wants to change their religion from Muslim to Christianity or vice versay, they must go through court proceedings until the court issues a document from a competent authority that allows the civilian to change their religion. This process requires the citizen to finish an application and have to witnessess to testify how the citizen wants to change their religion in front of the Sharh court. Once the application is finalized and approved by the Sharh court, the document will be ran through all of the governmental departments. This is due to the fact that changing religion has effects on the citizen legally in family law. Afterwards, the local newspapers will inform the locals of the new legal situation of that specific person.
Once someone changes religions their rights and privelages in family law changes. This is because Muslims have certain guidelines in family law based on their religion and Christians follow rules layed out by their churches. To be specific, changing religions negatively effects a person with custody, marriage, inheritance, and they must change their personal identification. I will provide a few examples as to how changing religion specifically effects Palestinians. Once one changes their religion, they must change their ID so that it is consistent with their new found religion. Also, they will almost always have to change their name. For both Muslim and Christian families, if someone converts to another religion then that person loses all of their interitance rights. Christians and Muslims both do not allow a marriage between two people who do not share the same religion. Therefore, people will convert their religion to be able to marry someone. If a spouse converts their religion, then the marriage they are in is seen as invalid. Changing religion is a common reason as to why women are killed, so that they do not dishonor their family.
For the most part, Palestinians live in peace with one another even with their diffrences of religion. In fact, Palesitne has holy sites that are visited by Muslims and Christians regularly from all over the world like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Sources:
http://jurist.org/dateline/2013/05/ibrahim-fare-religious-freedom.php
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Palestinians.html#b
Sources:
http://jurist.org/dateline/2013/05/ibrahim-fare-religious-freedom.php
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Palestinians.html#b
