No to Sharia Law in Britain
by Denis
MacEoin
Guardian.co.uk
June 29, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2174/no-to-sharia-law-in-britain
There are many reasons to find
problems with sharia law. In its full form, it contains numerous
provisions that are barbaric and irreconcilable with any advanced society:
stoning married adulterers, flogging the unmarried, throwing homosexuals
from roofs or steep hills, amputating limbs for theft, and much more.
But sharia is much wider than that.
It moves seamlessly from the public to the private realm, and it is in the
latter that we find demands that a measure of sharia be introduced to this
country. Such demands have been made, not just by Muslims, but even by an
astonishingly naïve Archbishop of Canterbury. Sharia is only marginally
about how a believer prays, fasts, pays the alms tax, or performs the
pilgrimage. For the individual it carries obligations and penalties that
cut deep into personal life. Here is a very simple example. If a Muslim
man in a fit of temper uses the triple divorce formula, even if his wife
is not present, the law considers the couple divorced. But if he comes to
his senses, he cannot simply resume relations with his wife. In order to
remarry, she must wait three months to determine that she is not pregnant.
Thereupon, she is obliged to marry another man and to have sex with him,
and this man must then divorce her (or not, if he decides to keep her).
She must then wait another three
months, after which her first husband may remarry her – see also Ask
Imam). This revolting practice, known as halala, demeans the woman. In
British law, it would be considered a form of coercion into unwanted
sexual relations. Is this what the archbishop wants?
But sharia has already entered the
UK through a back door. In October 2008 Bridget Prentice, parliamentary
under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice, stated that the
government does not "accommodate" any religious legal systems, but
confirmed two developments. First that sharia courts are operating under
the 1996 Arbitration Act, which allows private disputes to be settled by
an independent arbitrator. And second that sharia rulings on family
matters (that are not covered by arbitration) could be given the authority
of a British court by seeking "a consent order embodying the terms" of the
sharia court ruling. There is now a Muslim Arbitration Tribunal which
claims that the lord chief justice endorses alternative dispute resolution
under sharia law.
The idea that Muslim tribunals
arbitrating in matters of family law can take place without introducing
contradictions to UK law, mainly through severe discrimination against
Muslim women, is not well thought through. We have already seen one way
that sharia law may have repercussions for wives in certain instances of
divorce. Giving tribunals semi-official status will, assuming they work
according to sharia, introduce similar anomalies.
I have not been able to get reports
of live rulings from tribunals, but there are a large number of online
sites which offer fatwas in answer to questions posed by believers and
these seem likely to represent the kind of answers which tribunals in
Britain must produce.
If couples do not marry according to
UK civil law (and I have seen a fatwa ruling that they
need not register their marriage with the British authorities), there
may be serious consequences in the event of divorce; in the custody of
children (which always goes
against the woman); with respect to alimony (a man does
not have to pay any, except for
the children) and with regard to rights to a share in the family home
(which a
woman does not have). During the marriage, a man may coerce his wife
to have sex, (though
wives do not have that right); a husband may confine his wife to their
home; if one or the other partner abandons Islam, (the
marriage is declared null and void). It is considered wrong
to reject polygamy. If a woman wishes to divorce her husband, it is
made dependent on obtaining her husband's permission and the agreement of
a sharia court. A
woman may not marry a non-Muslim and a
man may marry only a Jewish or Christian woman. Legal adoption is
prohibited, but if a child has been adopted, he
or she may not inherit from the adoptive parents. The Leyton-based
Islamic Shariah Council has issued rulings including one that forbids
a woman of any age to marry without a male "guardian"; another that
says a man only
has to intend to divorce for it to be valid; one that insists that a
polygamous marriage must be maintained even in the UK (Islamic
Shariah Council); and another
that excuses a man from making alimony payments after divorce.
If Islamic tribunals are to
arbitrate according to such antiquated and discriminatory rulings, they
condemn British Muslim women to a life as second-class citizens with
barely any rights. And if they claim to advise only within the framework
of British law, then what are they doing in the first place? The only
solution to this scandalous situation is to ban such tribunals entirely
and let Muslims, like everybody else in this country, abide by a single
code of laws. Sharia courts must be excluded from recognition under the
1996 Arbitration Act if justice for all does not become a farce. Related Topics: Islamic law (Shari'a), Muslims in the United
Kingdom Denis
MacEoin |
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