Muslims can seek rulings on family or property issues from Sharia councils, which work in cooperation with the civil courts. By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
LONDON — It was a clear case of irreconcilable differences.
The wife said there was no love left in the marriage, she wanted a divorce. The husband insisted that she had been put under the influence of a taweez, a talisman, that had erased her affections for him. He refused to divorce.
“The husband says he has been pushed away from his home because of this taweez business,” said Sheik Haitham al-Haddad, a judge in North London’s Sharia council, a panel of Muslim scholars gathered in a back room of London’s biggest mosque to determine whether the woman should be granted a divorce under Islamic law.
For British Muslims, many of whom have one foot in Piccadilly Circus and the other in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Somalia, the British legal system is available, as it is to all. But it is singularly impotent when it comes to civil issues such as marriage, divorce and other disputes whose dispensation in heaven is often perceived as more crucial than any ruling that might be handed down by an English judge in a horsehair wig.
A tumultuous debate was set off in Britain this year when the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said it was time to consider “crafting a just and constructive relationship between Islamic law and the statutory law of the United Kingdom.” Eventually, he hinted, this could mean allowing Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims to seek legal recourse in Islamic courts in certain limited cases, such as marriage and divorce, as an alternative to the civil court system.
Little known to the general public, though, is that Sharia is quietly being applied every day in Britain, via Sharia councils that dispense Islamic civil justice in more than half a dozen mosques across the country.
The councils do not involve themselves in criminal law or any aspects of civil law in which they would be in direct conflict with British civil codes. The vast majority of their cases cover marriage and divorce. By consent of all parties, they may also arbitrate issues of property, child custody, housing and employment disputes, though their rulings are not binding unless submitted to the civilian courts.
“It is known that English judges are willing to accept agreements like this that are reached in Sharia courts, as long as it has been put into proper form,” said Mohammed Siddique, a paralegal who advises the Sharia council in Dewsbury, in northern England, on the technicalities of British law.
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a good move
too many women have no concept of the importance of sticking to your vows and promises.
sharia is the best system for marriage and divorce issues.
all divorces should be heard by a sharia court
wether muslim, secular or christian.
Marriage was created by God who is the Alpha and Omega of all things including human beings. His Written word which is the Bible to all mankind is the Law which God operates from. It is one of Love, grace, forgiveness and restoration. This is the highest law above all laws made by man in the earth. Whether one is judged by another law eith religious or national the fact remains there is only one just law and judgment and that comes from the one who created mankind not man who thinks he is God. However God is love and has the best intention towards mankind if he repents of his wicked ways and acknowledge the need for a God who loves, forgives sins and gives a genuine relationship with Himself who speaks and listens to us.
I don’t think that sharia law should be allowed. I am a christian and I would not like to live under sharia law I am not a muslim. Women shold not be opressed in this way it is wrong for such a dark age law to be used in modern day society of the 21st century. Take your sharia courts and go and live on Mars. then nobody has to put up with the crap you muslims use. Brain washers!!!!!
Sharia law has no place in a secular system. If people want to live under Sharia Law, they shouldn’t have gone to Britain and should just go back to where they came from.
Britain has gone mad and will regret the madness.
God didn’t create marriage. Man and religion did. I can’t believe how stupid people are.
What are the UK authorities really thinking? If you really want the sharia law, then by all means, leave the freaking country! Britain is a secular country and no religious law should be imposed upon its citizens. Many British are not even Muslims. Now, some Muslim claim that the reason why they want the sharia law is so that they can adopt better to the British society. How about assimilating and becoming British instead of whining about the British laws? If you don’t like the laws, then leave! Sheesh.
Internment that does not result in everyone being dead 48 hours later is obviously the province of government, with the massive infrastructural demands it makes of those who would implement it. ,
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE BULLCRAP CAN THESE PEOPLE PLEASE GO BACK TO THEIR LANDS>>IM AN IMMIGRANT AND I GO BY THE LAWS IF I DON’T LIKE IT I WILL HAPPILY LEAVE. MUSLIMS NEED TO DO THE SAME WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THE SPECIAL TRATMENT. BRITAIN YOU ARE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE AND WILL DEFINITELY REGRET IT. THESE PEOPLE WILL SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!
Sharia law will never work in this country as long as ive got a hole in my bum the moan about our ways and laws so why are they in this country then? They dont have any problems with our lwas when it comes to getting state handouts funded by the taxpayer funded by the very people they say they dislike. I would love to walk round a so called sharia law zone in my own country with a can in my hand and arm in arm with my wife and have one of these freaks tell me i cant do that then id remind them just what country they are in and what the law of the land is. Sharia law means squat in this land and if you dont like it leave .
Sharia law will never work in this country as long as ive got a hole in my bum the moan about our ways and laws so why are they in this country then? They dont have any problems with our laws when it comes to getting state handouts funded by the taxpayer funded by the very people they say they dislike. I would love to walk round a so called sharia law zone in my own country with a can in my hand and arm in arm with my wife and have one of these freaks tell me i cant do that then id remind them just whos country they are in and what the law of the land is. Sharia law means squat in this land and if you dont like it leave .
Please keep me informed about the percentage of Muslims in British cities as well as in late/ongoing lootings and riots. And about the consequences for the Muslim part of looters/rioters, under the self-desired Sharia law. Btw, it might be time to have criminal and never-ever-working people among them having to leave, to my belief in ALL European countries. The economic and other structures of our countries, though once solid cannot survive that. This has absolutely nothing to do with being against other religions/cultures or being racist, it’s just self-preservation instinct and common sense.