Islamic Law In Britain?

The following is an article that appeared in The Week magazine:

Great Britain: Should we adopt Islamic law?

Is the Church of England surrendering to Islam? said Matthew d’Ancona in the London Daily Telegraph. In an already infamous speech last week, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that the introduction of parts of Islamic sharia law in Britain “seems unavoidable,” since there are so many devout Muslims here who refuse to recognize British law. Bowing to that inevitability, he said, would “help to maintain social cohesion.” Williams, the leader of the Anglican Church, was professing to be tolerant of another religion, but in reality he was simply knuckling under to extremists. He actually mocked the idea that there should be “one law and only one law for everybody,” as if that were some quaint notion, not the very underpinning of Western thought. “Equality before the law is, in practice, the most meaningful form of equality that we have. Please, sir: Can we have the Enlightenment back?”

“There’s being tolerant and there’s being an ass,” said Anila Baig in the London Sun. We all know what sharia means: “stoning, amputations, lashings, and executions.” Britain left such abominations behind centuries ago. Are we to be dragged back to the Middle Ages to please our new “so-called citizens” from Pakistan and Bangladesh? “Why should those who already feel they are not part of society be pandered to? Why give them the green light to go their separate way?”

Many British Muslims shudder with horror at the thought, said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the London Independent. Muslim women such as myself are thrilled that we don’t live in Saudi Arabia or Iran, and we are already alarmed at the Islamification of Britain. “Ten years ago, the only fully shrouded Muslim women around were from the Arab fiefdoms,” but nowadays “all of Europe has these girls and women rendering themselves invisible in public spaces.” Moreover, we have been struggling to get so-called honor killings acknowledged as the scourge that they are and punished accordingly. If British Muslims were allowed to take their grievances to separate sharia courts, it would be impossible for women to get justice.

Archbishop Williams’ words have been twisted and misconstrued, said Deborah Orr, also in the Independent. He specifically stipulated that any Islamic court ruling could not go against British law. He merely proposed allowing an Islamic council to adjudicate trivial cases involving, for example, uncontested divorces. Such a concession will let the imams feel that they have a say in British life. “Far from pandering to extremists, he is thinking about how to beat them at their own game.”

Ah, so Williams wants us to adopt only the mild, inoffensive bits of sharia? asked the Plymouth Western Morning News in an editorial. That won’t wash. Islamic law is supposedly the direct word of God, which does not submit to editing. You cannot, in other words, “dine à la carte on sharia.” To suggest “that there is some jolly Anglican version of it is dangerous nonsense.” Williams was once considered one of the smartest bishops ever to head the Anglican Church. “Unhappily, he may also prove to be one of the worst.”