The Archnutter of Canterbury faced calls for his resignation today as bishops joined politicians in criticising his remarks supporting the adoption of sharia law in Britain.

Dr Rowan Williams was urged to quit by angry members of the General Synod, the Church's "parliament", who claimed he was undermining the Christian faith.

To add to his woes, Lord Carey, his predecessor at Canterbury, and the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, challenged his view that aspects of Islamic law could be incorporated into the English legal system.

The strength of the backlash represents one of the most serious blows to the Archbishop's authority since his appointment five years ago, and he faces more turbulence when the Synod convenes for a five-day meeting in London on Monday.

Last night friends of the Archbishop said he was "completely overwhelmed" by the hostility of the response and in a "state of shock" at the barrage of criticism he has received.

Lord Carey said that he was wrong to believe that sharia could be accommodated into the English system because there were so many conflicting versions of it, many of which discriminated against women.

Bishop Nazir-Ali, who holds dual British and Pakistani citizenship, said sharia would be "in tension" with fundamental aspects of our current legal system, such as the rights of women.

Offsite Comment: What he wishes on us is an abomination

See article from the Independent by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion.

Pray tell me sir, how do separate and impenetrable courts and schools and extreme female segregation promote commonalities and deep bonds between citizens of these small isles?

What he did on Thursday was to convince other Britons, white, black and brown, that Muslims want not equality but exceptionalism and their own domains. Enlightened British Muslims quail. Friends like this churchman do us more harm than our many enemies. He passes round what he believes to be the benign libation of tolerance. It is laced with arsenic.

He would not want his own girls and women, I am sure, to "choose" to be governed by these laws he breezily endorses. And he is naive to the point of folly if he imagines it is possible to pick and choose the bits that are relatively nice to the girls or ones that seem to dictate honourable financial transactions.

Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations.

Offsite Comment: Williams is dangerous. He must be resisted

See article from the Times by Matthew Parris

...Properly understood, the effect of devolving national law and national morality to local and group level is profoundly conservative. Dr Williams's ideas really represent the wilder fringes of a bigger idea: communitarianism...

There is absolutely nothing “left-wing” or woolly-liberal about empowering it. A Britain in which Muslim communities policed themselves would be more ruthlessly policed, and probably more law-abiding than today. But it would be a Britain in which the individual Muslim - maybe female, maybe ambitious, maybe gay, maybe a religious doubter - would lose their chances of rescue from his or her family or community by the State.

The State, not family, faith or community, is the guarantor of personal liberty and intellectual freedom, and it will always be to the State, not the Church, synagogue or mosque, that the oppressed individual needs look. Some two centuries ago Nonconformism in Britain, by offering the individual an unmediated approach to a personal God, started to liberate Christians from the Church. Dr Williams seems not to understand this. Or perhaps he does, and is on the other side.

Update: Unclear & Clumsily Deployed

12th February

See full article from the Independent

The Archbishop of Canterbury has sought to defuse the bitter row over what he appeared to claim was the unavoidable adoption of sharia law in the UK by conceding that his controversial comments may have been unclear and "clumsily deployed".

He insisted that the Church of England had a "considerable" responsibility to other faith groups and asserted that it was not "inappropriate" to raise issues surrounding Islam or other religions – comments that were immediately welcomed by Muslim leaders.

...By now a number of people have also got round to having a look at the archbishop’s actual lecture (the earliest reactions were to summary impressions), as well his World at One BBC radio interview – the real origin of the calumny heaped upon him. The speech contains some interesting questions and some problematic ideas. The broadcast opportunity that was intended to ‘put things in perspective’ ended up making them very much worse, however. As an object lesson in how to wrench a PR disaster out of a potential three-paragraph story on page 6, this might take some beating. Meanwhile, the real issues about religion and society, voluntary association and civil law, have been in danger of being obscured in the resulting brouhaha.

It is evident by now, I hope, that the head of the Church of England was not actually arguing for the incorporation of chunks of Sharia jurisprudence alongside English law, or its wholesale recognition as a competing legal system – though the damage done by the impression that he was doing this is probably irreparable. Rather, he was (is) suggesting, on the basis of a belief that ‘shared citizenship’ requires the official recognition of different identities and allegiances, that in the limited areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance and custody, voluntarily entered Muslim communal judgements might be recognised within what would remain a common framework of law – much as Talmudic provisions are for Orthodox Jews, it is suggested.

...Read the full article

The Archbishop of Canterbury returned to the debate on sharia law in the first of three public lectures to be given in Cambridge.

He attempted to make light of the criticism he has received. My doomed enterprise the other day was to try and introduce that bit of perspective. Let that be a warning to you all, he joked.

Addressing an audience of more than 1,200 people, he condemned the way Islamic law discriminated against women in some Muslim countries: In some of the ways it has been codified and practised across the world, it has been appalling. In some of the ways it has been applied to women in places like Saudi Arabia, it is grim.

Despite acknowledging the concerns raised over some aspects of sharia law, he repeated his assertion that it was rooted in the sense of doing God's will in the ordinary things of life.

He warned against demonising Muslims and their religion, saying that to judge the faith purely on negatives would be like judging Christianity on a couple of chapters of the Old Testament.

Conservative leader David Cameron has been criticised by nutters over his joke that he is considering introducing Sharia law for bicycle theft.

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said today:

We have had the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chief Justice saying aspects of Sharia law cold be introduced into civil proceedings. That was bad enough, but Cameron has gone one further, by suggesting that Sharia principles could be of value in our criminal law.

He may have thought it was a joke, but cutting peoples' hands cut off for theft isn't funny.

The idea of replacing our Judeo-Christian law with Islamic Sharia law isn't funny either.

Just two weeks ago, I was debating with Muslims in Queen Mary's University of London , opposing the motion: 'This House believes that Islam is the only intellectual and Political challenge to Liberal Secularism.'

These guys were moderate Muslims, but they were adamant that only Islam held the answer for the problems of British society.

Now the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition has encouraged that idea and raised expectations amongst Muslims that their criminal legal system could be of value in Britain .

David Cameron ought to go away and study what is happening in his own country. It is good that he has in a sense been 'mugged by reality' over crime but he is completely out of touch with the realities of Islamic ambition in this land.

Ms MuslimExWife... You will go home with NOTHING!

Islamic 'law' has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996. Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolv civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons. The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment. In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Ms MuslimExWife... You are the weakest link GOODBYE!

The new minister for race relations has attacked sharia courts, insisting that the Muslim community in Britain is not advanced enough to have its own legal system.

Sadiq Khan, whose comments will have added impact because he is a Muslim himself, has also warned that the growing number of tribunals based on Islamic codes could entrench discrimination against women.

Khan, who became minister for community cohesion in the government reshuffle this month, said: The burden is on those who want to open up these courts to persuade us why they should do it.

In a wide-ranging interview on race and immigration, Khan the Labour MP for Tooting, south London, also: Warned that an economic downturn could fuel ethnic tensions. Demanded an increase in benefits for immigrants with larger families. Admitted that government anti-terror laws had caused problems in race relations. Called on public bodies to cut translation services to encourage immigrants to learn English.

I have seen good examples of Jewish courts, Khan said. I would be very concerned about sharia courts applying in the UK. I don’t think there is that level of sophistication that there is in Jewish law.

Jewish law has a long history. There are not the same areas of concern that there are with sharia law. At some stage in the future I do not rule out the possibility that the Muslim diaspora in this country may be advanced enough. But now is not the right time.

Khan said he believed the tribunals would only exacerbate the unfair treatment of Muslim women: There is unequal bargaining power between men and women in this country. Women can be abused and persuaded to do things that they shouldn’t have to do.

The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the UK religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.

But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father.

In walked a bearded man in long robes who described his son-in-law as a hot-tempered man who had duped his daughter, evaded the police and humiliated his family.

The judge promptly reversed himself and recommended divorce.

...Read full article

New legislation may be needed to curb the activities of informal sharia courts that are operating in Britain, said the organisers of the One Law For All campaign, which was launched at the House of Lords this week.

Campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, commented that sharia law was undesirable in any form as it sets up conflicts between both human rights and civil law in Britain. Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children, she said.

Of particular concern was whether women were being coerced into using these courts and tribunals against their best interests.

Re the petition: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop Sharia Law from being binding in law under arbitration tribunals rules.

Further Details: Sharia law can be enforced in this country by the county and high courts. This is allowed under rules of arbitration when both parties in the dispute agree to give the tribunal (in this case a sharia court) the power to rule on the case. We state that this should be stopped, as sharia law is totally contrary to western values of fair and equal justice for all.

Result: Closed

Received 6572 signatures

Statement from No 10 Downing Street:

Shari’a law is the code of personal religious law governing the conduct of Muslims. It can extend into all aspects of people’s lives – personal, religious, family, civil and criminal.

Shari’a law is not part of the law of England and Wales. The Government does not intend to change this position in relation to the whole or part of the United Kingdom. However, provided an activity prescribed by Shari’a law does not contravene the law of England and Wales, there is nothing to prohibit it. Muslims can, for example, wear traditional dress and follow dietary rules. They are completely free to worship in the way that they want.

There can never be reliance on the fact that an act is permitted under Shari’a law as a justification for committing what is, under the law of England and Wales, a criminal act. Nor, for example, could someone expect a civil court, in reaching a decision on a contractual case under English or Scottish law, to apply the principles of Shari’a law.

Criminal matters, both small and serious, will always be heard in a Crown or Magistrate’s Court in England and Wales, and in Sheriff’s Courts in Scotland. The decisions made in an alternative court will not be recognised.

Nearly 600 people joined the One Law for All anti-racist rally against Sharia and religious-based laws in Britain and elsewhere and in defence of citizenship and universal rights in Trafalgar Square and marched towards Red Lion Square in London. Hundreds then joined our public meeting to discuss and debate Sharia, Sexual Apartheid and Women's Rights. Our protest was met with widespread support and left many feeling inspired and invigorated. It was also covered by the mainstream media, including BBC Radio 4, BBC 5 Live, BBC Wales, and the Times.

The rally of several hundred heard a number of speakers denouncing the policy of accommodation and appeasement of the political Islamic movement. A C Grayling in his speech said: 'Once you start fragmenting society, once you start allowing different groups in society to apply different standards, you get very profound injustices and it is almost always women who suffer these injustices. We have to fight hard to keep one law for everybody.'

Parisa who was refused a divorce from a violent husband said: Ten years of my life is gone because of Sharia law. I want to stop it. Please help to stop it. It is not fair. I had a good uncle who helped me to escape but what about others who don't have a chance to run away. I saw that many, many times.

Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, said: We do not need another legal system running in parallel... Sharia is creeping into our legal system and society and we must stop it in its tracks and now!

Fariborz Pooya, head of the Iranian Secular Society, said the introduction of Sharia is a betrayal of thousands of women and children and leaves them at the mercy of Islamist groups.

Veteran Tory Lord Tebbit provoked anger among Muslims yesterday by comparing Islamic sharia courts to gangsters.

He likened the tribunals to the system of arbitration of disputes that was run by the Kray brothers.

Lord Tebbit told the Lords: Are you not aware that there is extreme pressure put upon vulnerable women to go through a form of arbitration that results in them being virtually precluded from access to British law?

The intervention from Lord Tebbit, the former Tory chairman and cabinet minister whose leading role in the Thatcher years has made him a revered figure for many in the party, reignited the row over Islamic courts and their role in the British justice system.

Warning that women could be shut out from the protection of the law, he asked Justice Minister Lord Bach: That is a difficult matter, I know, but how do you think we can help those who are put in that position?

Lord Bach admitted a problem undoubtedly exists over the treatment of women in sharia courts.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: We can only wonder whether Lord Tebbit has ever set foot in a sharia council to see what they actually do before making such a baseless and ignorant comparison with the workings of the Kray brothers.

Both Muslim sharia councils and Orthodox Jewish Beth Din courts exist to try and help resolve civil disputes amongst individuals through a voluntary process of arbitration. They are entirely legal and have to operate firmly within the law.

Dozens of sharia courts in the UK are regularly giving illegal advice on issues including marriage and divorce, a report published today claims.

Decisions concerning marriages not recognised under English law, polygamy, and disputes regarding children are being made by at least 85 sharia courts, according to the report by the thinktank Civitas.

There is no clear divide between the functions of imams and the sharia courts. An imam who conducts a marriage which is not registered and then advises on disputes within that marriage acts in breach of the law and outside the scope of the sharia court's role, Civitas say.

Some of these courts are advising illegal actions, said Denis MacEoin, a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies who wrote the report. And others transgress human rights standards.

About two-thirds of Muslim marriages are not being registered under the Marriages Act, which is illegal, said Neil Addison, a barrister specialising in the law on religion. A woman with such a marriage would have no choice but to go to a sharia tribunal … But it's not the way arbitration is supposed to work.

MacEoin said: By demanding marriage under Muslim law, the divorce is determined by the man saying 'I divorce you' three times. Divorce under Islamic law also affects the wife's entitlement to alimony, custody of children, and who keeps the family house. These will all be decided by sharia law and will be discriminatory towards the woman in all cases.

Many Muslim lawyers have compared the operation of sharia courts to the Jewish beth din, which also operate as arbitration tribunals under UK law, a comparison which is questioned by the report. The report disputes the comparison. These courts are not operating within the same disciplines as the beth din. The beth din acknowledge that 'the law of the land is the law.' and a rabbi cannot perform a synagogue marriage ceremony unless a registrar is present to simultaneously register the marriage under English law.

Sharia courts also need to be more transparent if they are to continue, critic says. These tribunals don't seem to have any system of record keeping said MacEion: They are not transparent – either within their own community or for the outside community. That is a problem that needs to be looked at.

For the first time, the Islamic Sharia Council has granted access to a newspaper to observe the entire sharia legal process in Britain. Over several weeks, I was allowed to witness the filing of complaints, individual testimony hearings and the monthly meeting of imams, or judges, where rulings are handed down.

Sharia has been operating here, in parallel to the British legal system, since 1982. Work includes issuing fatwas - religious rulings on matters ranging from why Islam considers homosexuality a sin to why two women are equivalent to one male witness in an Islamic court.

The Islamic Sharia Council also rules on individual cases, primarily in matters of Muslim personal or civil law: divorce, marriage, inheritance and settlement of dowry payments are the most common.

However, in the course of my investigation, I discovered how sharia is being used informally within the Muslim community to tackle crime such as gang fights or stabbings, bypassing police and the British court system.

...Read full article

The Founder of Britain's oldest Sharia court has said that harsh Islamic punishments, such as the amputation of limbs, will make Britain a safer place.

The Daily Times quoted Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, secretary of the Islamic Sharia Council, as saying that the enforcement of Sharia law was something to bring you more peace and security.

Hasan, president of an East London Sharia court, admitted that that he doesn't expect Britain to implement Islamic criminal laws as it is not a Muslim country.

Acknowledging the controversy surrounding any notion of support for hardline Islamic law in Britain, he said he was merely expressing his point of view as a devout Muslim.

A UK sharia court judge, Suhaib Hasan, explains about islamic divorce in the UK.

The essence is that a man can divorce his wife at any time provided he has paid her a dowry.

However a woman who wants to divorce her husband she has to go via the court process. If she gets her request she has to pay her dowry back.

Hasan is calling that the dowry should be accommodated into UK law.

...Read full article

The muslim group Islam4UK has announced plans to hold a rally in London on October 31 for a procession to demand the full implementation of sharia law.

On a website to promote their cause they deride British institutions, showing a mock-up picture of Nelson's Column surmounted by a minaret.

Plans for the demonstration have been delivered to the Metropolitan Police.

The procession – dubbed March 4 Shari'ah – will start at the House of Commons, which the group's website describes as the very place where the lives of millions of people in the UK are changed and it is from here where unjust wars are launched.

The group then intends to march to 10 Downing Street and call for the removal of the tyrant Gordon Brown from power. The march will then converge on Trafalgar Square where protesters expect it will gather even more support from tourists and members of the public, making clear in the heart of London the need for Shari'ah in society.

The group declared: We hereby request all Muslims in the United Kingdom, in Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow and all other places to join us and collectively declare that as submitters to Almighty Allah, we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture. On this day we will call for a complete upheaval of the British ruling system its members and legislature, and demand the full implementation of Shari'ah in Britain.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer said: It is extremely distasteful and is stoking the fires of fear within the British public. If anyone thinks that those views are a step forward in society they are seriously deluded. They are repellent and repulsive.

A spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain said: 99.999% of Muslims despise these people. This only serves to fuel racial tensions.

A Home Office spokesman said: Everyone has the right to express their view so long as it is done sensibly, without violence and does not incite religious hatred.

Update: Birmingham Next

18th October 2009. See article from sundaymercury.net

And Choudary has revealed to the Sunday Mercury that his group plans to target Birmingham next. He said: We are hoping for more than 1,000 Muslims to attend the march in London on October 31. But if it proves a success then we may be coming to Birmingham next. I cannot say exactly when at this stage, but we would hope that it could take place within the next couple of months.

We believe there would be a lot of support for a March in Birmingham, where we would hope to raise the same issues as in London.

We want to start an intelligent debate about Islam and sharia and engage people in that debate.''

Muslims, ex-Muslims and non-Muslims joined forces in London to protest against Sharia and against all religious laws and courts. The rally took place in Hyde Park, Saturday 21 November 2009. Speakers included:

Roy Brown, of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU); rally organizer Maryam Namazie, of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (an IHEU Member Organization); David Pollock, president of the European Humanist Federation; Naomi Phillips of the British Humanist Association (IHEU MO); and Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society (IHEU MO).

The themes of the protest were one law for all and universal human rights. Expressing solidarity with Muslims resisting the inequalities and inhumanities of Sharia law, the protesters affirmed their commitment to democracy, secularism, equality and human rights.

Sharia law is a form of religious dogma and tyranny. It is homophobic, sexist and anti-democratic. It persecutes LGBT Muslims. Same-sex acts carry the death penalty in several Islamic states. Gay people can be stoned to death or hanged in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. We support LGBT Muslims - and all Muslims - who are fighting for their freedom, said Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! and Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East.

For these reasons, secularism is not only an important element of freedom of expression. It is also the best guarantee of religious freedom, as it prevents any one faith becoming politically dominant and abusing its powers to oppress people of other faiths, Tatchell added.

Lib Dem MP Evan Harris condemned the government for caving in to religious pressure. He cited the way Britain's equality laws allow religious bodies to discriminate against LGBT people and people in certain circumstances. Harris also condemned the government for giving privileged advisory status on policy and legislation to often unrepresentative faith leaders.

Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union warned that over 50 Islamic states, with the support of many developing countries, are currently demanding that the United Nations outlaw the defamation of religion. This would restrict free speech by criminalising criticism and condemnation of religious beliefs and institutions, he said.

A speaker from Iraq, Issam Shukri, told the rally how Islamist militias linked to the cleric and MP Muqtada al-Sadr had executed dozens of women who they deemed to be improperly dressed because were not fully covered head-to-toe. These militias have also organised death squad executions of LGBT Iraqis.

One Law for All will continue to push for an end to Sharia and religious laws in Britain. In the coming year, the campaign aims to conduct a survey of women who have been to Sharia courts here, will hold a fundraiser dinner on January 28, 2010 to raise money for the campaign; will host a March 8, 2010 seminar with legislators, lawyers and campaigners to recommend the legal and legislative avenues to ban Sharia and religious courts in Britain; will organise a June 20, 2010 rally against Sharia law; and will hold an October 10, 2010 conference on Sharia Law and Apostasy amongst other activities.

Seminar on banning Sharia law in Britain
8 March 2010 Time: 6:30-8:30pm Arrive at 6:00pm for registration and refreshments Conway Hall, Holborn, London

Seminar on legal and legislative means to ban Sharia law in Britain

Tickets: £10; £3 students/unwaged.

Speakers include:

• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (British Muslims for Secular Democracy)
• Yassi Atasheen (One Law for All)
• Clara Connolly (Women Against Fundamentalism)
• David Green (Civitas)
• Denis MacShane (Nutter MP)
• Rony Miah (Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Lawyers' Secular Society)
• Maryam Namazie (One Law for All)
• Pragna Patel (Southall Black Sisters)
• Fariborz Pooya (Iranian Secular Society)
• Yasmin Rahman (Women Against Fundamentalism)
• Joan Smith (Writer and Activist).