Sharia Law in Britain?
By Dr. Rizwana Rahim
Chicago , IL
Earlier this month, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, triggered a storm in UK when he suggested that some aspects of Sharia law may have to be accommodated in the British legal system. “It seems unavoidable,” he declared. The fact, which he made clear later, is that “certain conditions of Sharia are already recognized in our society.” This was not, however, enough to allay the concerns raised.
The Archbishop, not quite a stranger to controversy, expressed this first on 7 February in an interview on BBC Radio 4, later expanded in a scholarly speech in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The text of his speech is available on-line: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_02_08_islam.pdf ; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3333953.ece .
He was arguing for a “plural jurisdiction” that would allow observant Muslims to choose how best to resolve their civil (NOT criminal) disputes: in the secular British legal system or in Sharia courts. He was asking the British to keep an open mind on “constructive accommodation” of the Sharia law as an option for those Muslims who prefer to follow it, and not for the general public, and certainly not to replace or superimpose on the law of the land, or compromise it in any way.
Reaction from across the British religious, secular, political and public opinion spectrum was mostly negative. Some thought he “unwittingly inflamed community tensions,” others demanded his resignation, although some church leaders did support him.
British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown , who believes the Archbishop is “a man of great integrity and dedication to public and community service,” has through his spokesman, dismissed the Archbishop’s views: “British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law…..Sharia cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of Sharia be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.” Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary said: “I think there is one law in this country and it's the democratically determined law.”
Those close to the Archbishop have said he believes the reaction to his speech, which they say was ‘well-researched’ and a result of his consultations with Islamic and Jewish legal experts, has been “irrational.” In his Presidential address to the national assembly (synod) of the Church of England, Dr. Williams took responsibility for any "misleading choice of words,” but defended his earlier comments, without apologizing for them. He acknowledged that "however clumsily it may have been deployed in this instance," and for the "unclarity" that caused "distress or misunderstanding" among the public, “especially his fellow Christians,” he thought it a “privilege” to provide a “coherent voice” for different faith communities. He was not suggesting Sharia laws as a "parallel jurisdiction" to the British legal system but within it, and only for civil (not criminal) disputes between members of Muslim community (and not for every UK citizen) interested in following Sharia laws.
To assume that the entire Muslim community (1.6 million strong, 2.7% of the British population) wishes to see Sharia laws applied in Britain would be wrong and misleading. According to various polls, only a minority (about 40%) of Muslims feel inclined that way, and most feel satisfied that the British legal system, already provides them equal access and treatment. Muslim reaction to Dr. Williams’ comments has not been uniformly supportive either.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, supports the Archbishop. Dilawar Hussain of the Islamic Foundation, a Muslim European think-tank, believes “Most Muslims are perfectly happy with the legal system as it exists in the UK…. It protects them, …. some of the most important things that concern people are already there in the system.”
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born Islamic scholar and professor of Oxford University, who was quoted by the Archbishop, cautions: "These kinds of statements just feed the fears of fellow citizens and I really think we, as Muslims, need to come with something that we abide by the common law and within these latitudes there are possibilities for us to be faithful to Islamic principles."
On the other hand, Baroness Sayeed Warsi (one of the two members of House of Lords who negotiated the release of Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher, who was jailed in Sudan for allowing school children to name a Teddy bear, ‘Muhammad’) who is the Conservative peer and Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, thought the Archbishop’s comments were “unhelpful and may add to the confusion that already exists in our communities ... We must ensure that people of all backgrounds and religions are treated equally before the law. Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices. But let's be absolutely clear: all British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through parliament and the courts."
There was no need for Sharia courts, declared Shaista Gohir, a government adviser on Muslim women and director of Muslim Voice UK, because "the majority of Muslims do not want it". Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, who has a Christian-Muslim family background and has himself made controversial remarks about Muslims, believes the codes of Sharia "would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like monogamy, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of inheritance and of evidence. This is not to mention the relation of freedom of belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy.”
Sharia courts do exist in the UK, but their decisions are not considered definitive or final in the British legal system, although Islamic marriages and divorces, even when conducted outside Britain, are recognized and legally accepted in Britain. More surprisingly, multiple wives of a husband are considered eligible by the Department for Work and Pensions for spousal benefits. Because of Islamic prohibition on charging interest, Prime Minister Brown, when he was the Chancellor last year, amended the law to accommodate Sharia-compliant mortgages and investments. Despite protests from animal welfare groups against the zabiha methods, halal meat is legal in Britain.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Sharia practices would not occasionally clash with the law of the land, but if and when they do, the law of the land will prevail. A book, “Crimes of the Community: Honor-Based Violence in the UK,” by James Brandon and Salam Hafez, is a shocking eye-opener to how actions supposedly taken in the name ‘religious’ practices (forced marriages, violence and murder of women, vigilante measures, etc) sometimes turn criminal.
The Archbishop built his argument on how some other religious groups have been operating within the existing British legal framework, notably ‘Beth Din’, a rabbinical court set up a century ago by a British statute. ‘Beth Din’, for those in the Jewish community who wish to follow it voluntarily, acts as a court recognized by the British legal system to resolve civil disputes (including divorces etc) -- NOT criminal cases deciding fines and punishment. ‘Beth Din’ does not and cannot, however, supercede the British law which reigns supreme in the UK.
The ‘Beth Din’ world is also described in ‘Disobedience’, a novel by Naomi Alderman. Another community example is that of the Sikh turban: Parliament ruled 30 years ago that observant Sikhs do not have to abandon their turban, or wear helmet instead while on a motor cycle.
Apart from the confusion described, most of the reaction to the Archbishop was probably due to the harsh image ‘Sharia’ evokes in the West. Even in the Muslim world of 57 countries, Sharia laws are by no means well understood and applied uniformed. Most Muslim countries follow the ‘personal law’ or ‘limited-use’ Sharia applied, e.g., in case of marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody. Even in these areas, we see widely different interpretations within the different Sunni groups, as well as among the Shias. As if this is not enough, there are further differences between the traditional and progressive points of view. Just a few countries, perhaps two or three including Saudi Arabia, are considered fully Sharia-compliant, with harsh criminal laws.
Archbishop is a noted scholar but no matter how well-researched his speech to the clergy was or how carefully he pointed to the aspects of Sharia already in use in the Muslim community, to the British public in general, already exposed to the fundamentalist extremism, such comments over BBC Radio 4 from an Archbishop must have caused much concern that day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
