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Admitting Islamic law to
British courts? A bad idea!
of TheColumnists.com
Sometimes a man should keep his mouth shut. If walls have ears, so do wives. When Darlene heard me muttering to myself this morning while staring at my Mac computer, she raised her eyebrows, opened her baby blue eyes and pointedly asked, "What did you say?"
"Oh, nothing important, honey," I managed to reply casually. "It's just some news on the computer. That's all."
"Well, if it's about Hillary winning more delegates for the presidency, I know all about that from the morning paper. So far this Super Tuesday has kept ambitious Barack in his place--and also Bill."
So she let the subject go and returned to reading a second-hand copy of something she’d picked up at a garage sale: "The Education of A Woman: The Life and Times of Gloria Steinem" by Carolyn Heilburns.
What I’d muttered under my breath I wanted to keep to myself. No use alarming my companion in life by alarmist news. Soon enough she would learn what I was reading on my computer screen. But I was glad my mutterings were not understandable because they came as a reaction to a headline that appeared in the London daily, "The Guardian."
It read: ARCHBISHOP BACKS SHARIA LAW FOR MUSLIMS
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who today is Dr. Rowan Williams, has stirred England to its ancestral bones by what he said on Thursday. He sent much of the country into shock by wishing to give Islamic law official status in the UK. He argued that it would help achieve social cohesion because some Muslims do not relate to the British legal system, as it is now constituted.
"Reactions to his BBC Channel 4 Radio
interview and lectures on civil and religious
law at the Royal Courts of Justice were almost immediate. The
prime minister's spokesman swiftly rejected the archbishop's
comments. A statement from No. 10 Downing Street clarified Prime
Minister Gordon Brown's position on the matter, saying that British
law would still prevail. There were few circumstances allowing
for sharia law to take precedence over national law.
"Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.”
There has been an outpouring of opinion on the matter. Among them is that of the Rt. Rev. Dr Michael Nazir-Ali who knows from first-hand experience that it would be "simply impossible" to apply sharia law in Britain. As someone holding dual British and Pakistani citizenship, he received death threats and needed police protection last month after stating publicly parts of Britain are ‘no-go areas’ for non-Muslims.
Dr. Nazir-Ali also said that the rights of women under British law would be “in tension” with sharia law, adding that Muslim women in Canada already were pleading that sharia law not be applied to them in marriage disputes.
The Archbishop, however, believes that introducing sharia law would allow Muslims to avoid having to choose between two systems. "If what we want socially is a pattern of relations in which a plurality of diverse and overlapping affiliations work for a common good, and in which groups of serious and profound conviction are not systematically faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty, it seems unavoidable."
Anyone today familiar with “sharia law” should be aware of how aspects of this law are affecting events in the Middle East. In places where Muslims are in control, women face cruel harm and punishment if they dare challenge the system. They must obey patriarchal authority which entails that young females not be allowed to be educated, that the family choose their husbands, confine unmarried women to the home, never to be seen in public without a veil, abhor western values and clothing, and avoid any contact with men.
Brothers are commanded to kill sisters for violating these rules. Husbands are permitted to beat their wives. A father, upon learning that a daughter has been raped, feels obliged to see her killed to protect the “family honor” even though the girl was the victim of the crime, not the perpetrator. A man can divorce a woman simply by saying, “I divorce you.”
It is hard to believe that a well meaning Oxford-university educated modern man would place in jeopardy the hard-won human rights of western civilization by supposing they can be aligned with the tyrannies of the past and the Dark Ages by taking away English law from select inhabitants. Clearly he has made a completely false turn in trying to accommodate himself to this challenge and his approach calls for all of us to express our strong and determined opposition.
Has he forgotten that Muslim-born Salman Rushdie was condemned to death for daring to criticize tyrannical or plain stupid elements of this faith in a novel? Intolerant of any criticism, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa -- “Death to the infidel.”
Is he unaware of the dichotomy between Muslim and Western values, which permits them to criticize us, but forbids us from weighing anything they say or believe in the scale of our own human intelligence? Where is there any place for freedom of speech or press in their theocracy?
One of their fanatics has murdered a Dutch movie producer for daring to present his views of their intemperate religion on the screen. Thousands protested and threatened a Danish cartoonist for innocently characterizing Mohammed in a humorous way in a newspaper. By contrast to these mere expressions of opinion, there has been no discernable outcry to outright acts of violence against innocent westerners.
Where were the objections from leading Muslim clerics at the time a civilian American journalist was kidnapped, tortured and beheaded on television? We also witnessed no great Muslim outrage over the capture and killing in Iraq of a dedicated French social worker who came to Baghdad to devote her life to rescuing Muslims from harm and heal misunderstanding between the races.
No one is probably more highly respected on religious matters in the United Kingdom than the Archbishop of Canterbury. When he speaks, everybody listens. While Queen Elizabeth is nominally head of the Church of England, the Archbishop (like the Prime Minister in secular matters) administers affairs of the church. Consequently no cleric in Britain delivers messages to the people whose words carry more weight among the British than he.
However, what Dr. Williams has advocated astonishes me. Why doesn’t he support those Muslims who dare to call for radical changes of their own faith? He should be looking for a liberated follower of Mohammed. Why not support a Muslim in the mold of Christianity’s own courageous Martin Luther who awakened his faith to its wrongs when he nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517. It began the Protestant Revolution.
Muslim women seem to be expressing a growing need for this kind of change. We find them talking amongst themselves about their status and discussing whether they should be given certain basic human rights. In some areas of the world these brave Muslim females seem to be more active, thoughtful and courageous in demanding change than their men.
Since the Church of England has gradually changed from a male-dominated religion to one allowing females to rise to high office in the clergy, maybe it’s time for Dr. Williams to step aside for someone of the opposite sex. Perhaps a female perspective on this problem in that high office is needed after centuries of male domination.
Something like that is also needed today by the Muslims if they are to leave the caves of the Dark Ages and catch up with the rest of us in the enlightened 21st century. Peace depends upon us all living peacefully together on this planet earth. Since more than half of the populated surface of the world already is occupied by Muslims, why do they choose to move to places in the west where laws, customs and values are obviously different from their own?
Westerners are prevented from spreading their faiths over there. We also are powerless to change Shalia laws over there. Why then should the Archbishop want newcomers to change our laws over here? Let him try being a Christian missionary in countries around Mecca before taking up their causes over here.
©2008 by Gordon Greb. The caricature of the author is by the author. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Feb. 11, 2008.
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