Why Shariah?

by Noah Feldman
(Al Arabiyya)

Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that “the law of the Church of England is the law of the land” there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and doctrine. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.Then all hell broke loose. From politicians across the spectrum to senior church figures and the ubiquitous British tabloids came calls for the leader of the world’s second largest Christian denomination to issue a retraction or even resign. Williams has spent the last couple of years trying to hold together the global Anglican Communion in the face of continuing controversies about ordaining gay priests and recognizing same-sex marriages. Yet little in that contentious battle subjected him to the kind of outcry that his reference to religious courts unleashed. Needless to say, the outrage was not occasioned by Williams’s mention of Orthodox Jewish law. For the purposes of public discussion, it was the word “Shariah” that was radioactive.

In some sense, the outrage about according a degree of official status to Shariah in a Western country should come as no surprise. No legal system has ever had worse press. To many, the word “Shariah” conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed. By contrast, who today remembers that the much-loved English common law called for execution as punishment for hundreds of crimes, including theft of any object worth five shillings or more? How many know that until the 18th century, the laws of most European countries authorized torture as an official component of the criminal-justice system? As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes.In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world. Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah for a handful of offenses, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation. Before an adultery conviction can typically be obtained, for example, the accused must confess four times or four adult male witnesses of good character must testify that they directly observed the sex act. The extremes of our own legal system — like life sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, in some cases — are routinely ignored. We neglect to mention the recent vintage of our tentative improvements in family law. It sometimes seems as if we need Shariah as Westerners have long needed Islam: as a canvas on which to project our ideas of the horrible, and as a foil to make us look good.In the Muslim world, on the other hand, the reputation of Shariah has undergone an extraordinary revival in recent years. A century ago, forward-looking Muslims thought of Shariah as outdated, in need of reform or maybe abandonment. Today, 66 percent of Egyptians, 60 percent of Pakistanis and 54 percent of Jordanians say that Shariah should be the only source of legislation in their countries. Islamist political parties, like those associated with the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, make the adoption of Shariah the most prominent plank in their political platforms. And the message resonates. Wherever Islamists have been allowed to run for office in Arabic-speaking countries, they have tended to win almost as many seats as the governments have let them contest. The Islamist movement in its various incarnations — from moderate to radical — is easily the fastest growing and most vital in the Muslim world; the return to Shariah is its calling card.How is it that what so many Westerners see as the most unappealing and premodern aspect of Islam is, to many Muslims, the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival? The explanation surely must go beyond the oversimplified assumption that Muslims want to use Shariah to reverse feminism and control women — especially since large numbers of women support the Islamists in general and the ideal of Shariah in particular.

Is Shariah the Rule of Law?

One reason for the divergence between Western and Muslim views of Shariah is that we are not all using the word to mean the same thing. Although it is commonplace to use the word “Shariah” and the phrase “Islamic law” interchangeably, this prosaic English translation does not capture the full set of associations that the term “Shariah” conjures for the believer. Shariah, properly understood, is not just a set of legal rules. To believing Muslims, it is something deeper and higher, infused with moral and metaphysical purpose. At its core, Shariah represents the idea that all human beings — and all human governments — are subject to justice under the law.In fact, “Shariah” is not the word traditionally used in Arabic to refer to the processes of Islamic legal reasoning or the rulings produced through it: that word is fiqh, meaning something like Islamic jurisprudence. The word “Shariah” connotes a connection to the divine, a set of unchanging beliefs and principles that order life in accordance with God’s will. Westerners typically imagine that Shariah advocates simply want to use the Koran as their legal code. But the reality is much more complicated. Islamist politicians tend to be very vague about exactly what it would mean for Shariah to be the source for the law of the land — and with good reason, because just adopting such a principle would not determine how the legal system would actually operate.Shariah is best understood as a kind of higher law, albeit one that includes some specific, worldly commands. All Muslims would agree, for example, that it prohibits lending money at interest — though not investments in which risks and returns are shared; and the ban on Muslims drinking alcohol is an example of an unequivocal ritual prohibition, even for liberal interpreters of the faith. Some rules associated with Shariah are undoubtedly old-fashioned and harsh. Men and women are treated unequally, for example, by making it hard for women to initiate divorce without forfeiting alimony. The prohibition on sodomy, though historically often unenforced, makes recognition of same-sex relationships difficult to contemplate. But Shariah also prohibits bribery or special favors in court. It demands equal treatment for rich and poor. It condemns the vigilante-style honor killings that still occur in some Middle Eastern countries. And it protects everyone’s property — including women’s — from being taken from them. Unlike in Iran, where wearing a head scarf is legally mandated and enforced by special religious police, the Islamist view in most other Muslim countries is that the head scarf is one way of implementing the religious duty to dress modestly — a desirable social norm, not an enforceable legal rule. And mandating capital punishment for apostasy is not on the agenda of most elected Islamists. For many Muslims today, living in corrupt autocracies, the call for Shariah is not a call for sexism, obscurantism or savage punishment but for an Islamic version of what the West considers its most prized principle of political justice: the rule of law.

The Sway of the Scholars

To understand Shariah’s deep appeal, we need to ask a crucial question that is rarely addressed in the West: What, in fact, is the system of Islamic law? In his lifetime, the Prophet Muhammad was both the religious and the political leader of the community of Muslim believers. His revelation, the Koran, contained some laws, pertaining especially to ritual matters and inheritance; but it was not primarily a legal book and did not include a lengthy legal code of the kind that can be found in parts of the Hebrew Bible. When the first generation of believers needed guidance on a subject that was not addressed by revelation, they went directly to Muhammad. He either answered of his own accord or, if he was unsure, awaited divine guidance in the form of a new revelation.With the death of Muhammad, divine revelation to the Muslim community stopped. The role of the political-religious leader passed to a series of caliphs (Arabic for “substitute”) who stood in the prophet’s stead. That left the caliph in a tricky position when it came to resolving difficult legal matters. The caliph possessed Muhammad’s authority but not his access to revelation. It also left the community in something of a bind. If the Koran did not speak clearly to a particular question, how was the law to be determined?The answer that developed over the first couple of centuries of Islam was that the Koran could be supplemented by reference to the prophet’s life — his sunna, his path. (The word “sunna” is the source of the designation Sunni — one who follows the prophet’s path.) His actions and words were captured in an oral tradition, beginning presumably with a person who witnessed the action or statement firsthand. Accurate reports had to be distinguished from false ones. But of course even a trustworthy report on a particular situation could not directly resolve most new legal problems that arose later. To address such problems, it was necessary to reason by analogy from one situation to another. There was also the possibility that a communal consensus existed on what to do under particular circumstances, and that, too, was thought to have substantial weight.This fourfold combination — the Koran, the path of the prophet as captured in the collections of reports, analogical reasoning and consensus — amounted to a basis for a legal system. But who would be able to say how these four factors fit together? Indeed, who had the authority to say that these factors and not others formed the sources of the law? The first four caliphs, who knew the prophet personally, might have been able to make this claim for themselves. But after them, the caliphs were faced with a growing group of specialists who asserted that they, collectively, could ascertain the law from the available sources. This self-appointed group came to be known as the scholars — and over the course of a few generations, they got the caliphs to acknowledge them as the guardians of the law. By interpreting a law that originated with God, they gained control over the legal system as it actually existed. That made them, and not the caliphs, into “the heirs of the prophets.”Among the Sunnis, this model took effect very early and persisted until modern times. For the Shiites, who believe that the succession of power followed the prophet’s lineage, the prophet had several successors who claimed extraordinary divine authority. Once they were gone, however, the Shiite scholars came to occupy a role not unlike that of their Sunni counterparts.Under the constitutional theory that the scholars developed to explain the division of labor in the Islamic state, the caliph had paramount responsibility to fulfill the divine injunction to “command the right and prohibit the wrong.” But this was not a task he could accomplish on his own. It required him to delegate responsibility to scholarly judges, who would apply God’s law as they interpreted it. The caliph could promote or fire them as he wished, but he could not dictate legal results: judicial authority came from the caliph, but the law came from the scholars. The caliphs — and eventually the sultans who came to rule once the caliphate lost most of its worldly influence — still had plenty of power. They handled foreign affairs more or less at their discretion. And they could also issue what were effectively administrative regulations — provided these regulations did not contradict what the scholars said Shariah required. The regulations addressed areas where Shariah was silent. They also enabled the state to regulate social conduct without having to put every case before the courts, where convictions would often be impossible to obtain because of the strict standards of proof required for punishment. As a result of these regulations, many legal matters (perhaps most) fell outside the rules given specifically by Shariah. The upshot is that the system of Islamic law as it came to exist allowed a great deal of leeway. That is why today’s advocates of Shariah as the source of law are not actually recommending the adoption of a comprehensive legal code derived from or dictated by Shariah — because nothing so comprehensive has ever existed in Islamic history. To the Islamist politicians who advocate it or for the public that supports it, Shariah generally means something else. It means establishing a legal system in which God’s law sets the ground rules, authorizing and validating everyday laws passed by an elected legislature. In other words, for them, Shariah is expected to function as something like a modern constitution.

The Rights of Humans and the Rights of God

So in contemporary Islamic politics, the call for Shariah does not only or primarily mean mandating the veiling of women or the use of corporal punishment — it has an essential constitutional dimension as well. But what is the particular appeal of placing Shariah above ordinary law?The answer lies in a little-remarked feature of traditional Islamic government: that a state under Shariah was, for more than a thousand years, subject to a version of the rule of law. And as a rule-of-law government, the traditional Islamic state had an advantage that has been lost in the dictatorships and autocratic monarchies that have governed so much of the Muslim world for the last century. Islamic government was legitimate, in the dual sense that it generally respected the individual legal rights of its subjects and was seen by them as doing so. These individual legal rights, known as “the rights of humans” (in contrast to “the rights of God” to such things as ritual obedience), included basic entitlements to life, property and legal process — the protections from arbitrary government oppression sought by people all over the world for centuries.Of course, merely declaring the ruler subject to the law was not enough on its own; the ruler actually had to follow the law. For that, he needed incentives. And as it happened, the system of government gave him a big one, in the form of a balance of power with the scholars. The ruler might be able to use pressure once in a while to get the results he wanted in particular cases. But because the scholars were in charge of the law, and he was not, the ruler could pervert the course of justice only at the high cost of being seen to violate God’s law — thereby undermining the very basis of his rule.In practice, the scholars’ leverage to demand respect for the law came from the fact that the caliphate was not hereditary as of right. That afforded the scholars major influence at the transitional moments when a caliph was being chosen or challenged. On taking office, a new ruler — even one designated by his dead predecessor — had to fend off competing claimants. The first thing he would need was affirmation of the legitimacy of his assumption of power. The scholars were prepared to offer just that, in exchange for the ruler’s promise to follow the law.Once in office, rulers faced the inevitable threat of invasion or a palace coup. The caliph would need the scholars to declare a religious obligation to protect the state in a defensive jihad. Having the scholars on his side in times of crisis was a tremendous asset for the ruler who could be said to follow the law. Even if the ruler was not law-abiding, the scholars still did not spontaneously declare a sitting caliph disqualified. This would have been foolish, especially in view of the fact that the scholars had no armies at their disposal and the sitting caliph did. But their silence could easily be interpreted as an invitation for a challenger to step forward and be validated.The scholars’ insistence that the ruler obey Shariah was motivated largely by their belief that it was God’s will. But it was God’s will as they interpreted it. As a confident, self-defined elite that controlled and administered the law according to well-settled rules, the scholars were agents of stability and predictability — crucial in societies where the transition from one ruler to the next could be disorderly and even violent. And by controlling the law, the scholars could limit the ability of the executive to expropriate the property of private citizens. This, in turn, induced the executive to rely on lawful taxation to raise revenues, which itself forced the rulers to be responsive to their subjects’ concerns. The scholars and their law were thus absolutely essential to the tremendous success that Islamic society enjoyed from its inception into the 19th century. Without Shariah, there would have been no Haroun al-Rashid in Baghdad, no golden age of Muslim Spain, no reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in Istanbul.For generations, Western students of the traditional Islamic constitution have assumed that the scholars could offer no meaningful check on the ruler. As one historian has recently put it, although Shariah functioned as a constitution, “the constitution was not enforceable,” because neither scholars nor subjects could “compel their ruler to observe the law in the exercise of government.” But almost no constitution anywhere in the world enables judges or nongovernmental actors to “compel” the obedience of an executive who controls the means of force. The Supreme Court of the United States has no army behind it. Institutions that lack the power of the sword must use more subtle means to constrain executives. Like the American constitutional balance of powers, the traditional Islamic balance was maintained by words and ideas, and not just by forcible compulsion.So today’s Muslims are not being completely fanciful when they act and speak as though Shariah can structure a constitutional state subject to the rule of law. One big reason that Islamist political parties do so well running on a Shariah platform is that their constituents recognize that Shariah once augured a balanced state in which legal rights were respected.

From Shariah to Despotism

But if Shariah is popular among many Muslims in large part because of its historical association with the rule of law, can it actually do the same work today? Here there is reason for caution and skepticism. The problem is that the traditional Islamic constitution rested on a balance of powers between a ruler subject to law and a class of scholars who interpreted and administered that law. The governments of most contemporary majority-Muslim states, however, have lost these features. Rulers govern as if they were above the law, not subject to it, and the scholars who once wielded so much influence are much reduced in status. If they have judicial posts at all, it is usually as judges in the family-law courts.In only two important instances do scholars today exercise real power, and in both cases we can see a deviation from their traditional role. The first is Iran, where Ayatollah Khomeini, himself a distinguished scholar, assumed executive power and became supreme leader after the 1979 revolution. The result of this configuration, unique in the history of the Islamic world, is that the scholarly ruler had no counterbalance and so became as unjust as any secular ruler with no check on his authority. The other is Saudi Arabia, where the scholars retain a certain degree of power. The unfortunate outcome is that they can slow any government initiative for reform, however minor, but cannot do much to keep the government responsive to its citizens. The oil-rich state does not need to obtain tax revenues from its citizens to operate — and thus has little reason to keep their interests in mind.How the scholars lost their exalted status as keepers of the law is a complex story, but it can be summed up in the adage that partial reforms are sometimes worse than none at all. In the early 19th century, the Ottoman empire responded to military setbacks with an internal reform movement. The most important reform was the attempt to codify Shariah. This Westernizing process, foreign to the Islamic legal tradition, sought to transform Shariah from a body of doctrines and principles to be discovered by the human efforts of the scholars into a set of rules that could be looked up in a book.Once the law existed in codified form, however, the law itself was able to replace the scholars as the source of authority. Codification took from the scholars their all-important claim to have the final say over the content of the law and transferred that power to the state. To placate the scholars, the government kept the Shariah courts running but restricted them to handling family-law matters. This strategy paralleled the British colonial approach of allowing religious courts to handle matters of personal status. Today, in countries as far apart as Kenya and Pakistan, Shariah courts still administer family law — a small subset of their original historical jurisdiction.Codification signaled the death knell for the scholarly class, but it did not destroy the balance of powers on its own. Promulgated in 1876, the Ottoman constitution created a legislature composed of two lawmaking bodies — one elected, one appointed by the sultan. This amounted to the first democratic institution in the Muslim world; had it established itself, it might have popularized the notion that the people represent the ultimate source of legal authority. Then the legislature could have replaced the scholars as the institutional balance to the executive.But that was not to be. Less than a year after the legislature first met, Sultan Abdulhamid II suspended its operation — and for good measure, he suspended the constitution the following year. Yet the sultan did not restore the scholars to the position they once occupied. With the scholars out of the way and no legislature to replace them, the sultan found himself in the position of near-absolute ruler. This arrangement set the pattern for government in the Muslim world after the Ottoman empire fell. Law became a tool of the ruler, not an authority over him. What followed, perhaps unsurprisingly, was dictatorship and other forms of executive dominance — the state of affairs confronted by the Islamists who seek to restore Shariah.

A Democratic Shariah?

The Islamists today, partly out of realism, partly because they are rarely scholars themselves, seem to have little interest in restoring the scholars to their old role as the constitutional balance to the executive. The Islamist movement, like other modern ideologies, seeks to capture the existing state and then transform society through the tools of modern government. Its vision for bringing Shariah to bear therefore incorporates two common features of modern government: the legislature and the constitution.The mainstream Sunni Islamist position, found, for example, in the electoral platforms of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, is that an elected legislature should draft and pass laws that are consistent with the spirit of Islamic law. On questions where Islamic law does not provide clear direction, the democratically chosen legislature is supposed to use its discretion to adopt laws infused by Islamic values.The result is a profound change in the theoretical structure underlying Islamic law: Shariah is democratized in that its care is given to a popularly elected legislature. In Iraq, for example, where the constitution declares Shariah to be “the source of law,” it is in principle up to the National Assembly to pass laws that reflect its spirit.In case the assembly gets it wrong, however, the Islamists often recommend the judicial review of legislative actions to guarantee that they do not violate Islamic law or values. What is sometimes called a “repugnancy clause,” mandating that a judicial body overturn laws repugnant to Islam, has made its way into several recent constitutions that seek to reconcile Islam and democracy. It may be found, for example, in the Afghan Constitution of 2004 and the Iraqi Constitution of 2005. (I had a small role advising the Iraqi drafters.) Islamic judicial review transforms the highest judicial body of the state into a guarantor of conformity with Islamic law. The high court can then use this power to push for a conservative vision of Islamic law, as in Afghanistan, or for a more moderate version, as in Pakistan.Islamic judicial review puts the court in a position resembling the one that scholars once occupied. Like the scholars, the judges of the reviewing court present their actions as interpretations of Islamic law. But of course the judges engaged in Islamic judicial review are not the scholars but ordinary judges (as in Iraq) or a mix of judges and scholars (as in Afghanistan). In contrast to the traditional arrangement, the judges’ authority comes not from Shariah itself but from a written constitution that gives them the power of judicial review.The modern incarnation of Shariah is nostalgic in its invocation of the rule of law but forward-looking in how it seeks to bring this result about. What the Islamists generally do not acknowledge, though, is that such institutions on their own cannot deliver the rule of law. The executive authority also has to develop a commitment to obeying legal and constitutional judgments. That will take real-world incentives, not just a warm feeling for the values associated with Shariah.How that happens — how an executive administration accustomed to overweening power can be given incentives to subordinate itself to the rule of law — is one of the great mysteries of constitutional development worldwide. Total revolution has an extremely bad track record in recent decades, at least in majority-Muslim states. The revolution that replaced the shah in Iran created an oppressively top-heavy constitutional structure. And the equally revolutionary dreams some entertained for Iraq — dreams of a liberal secular state or of a functioning Islamic democracy — still seem far from fruition.Gradual change therefore increasingly looks like the best of some bad options. And most of today’s political Islamists — the ones running for office in Morocco or Jordan or Egypt and even Iraq — are gradualists. They wish to adapt existing political institutions by infusing them with Islamic values and some modicum of Islamic law. Of course, such parties are also generally hostile to the United States, at least where we have worked against their interests. (Iraq is an obvious exception — many Shiite Islamists there are our close allies.) But this is a separate question from whether they can become a force for promoting the rule of law. It is possible to imagine the electoral success of Islamist parties putting pressure on executives to satisfy the demand for law-based government embodied in Koranic law. This might bring about a transformation of the judiciary, in which judges would come to think of themselves as agents of the law rather than as agents of the state.Something of the sort may slowly be happening in Turkey. The Islamists there are much more liberal than anywhere else in the Muslim world; they do not even advocate the adoption of Shariah (a position that would get their government closed down by the staunchly secular military). Yet their central focus is the rule of law and the expansion of basic rights against the Turkish tradition of state-centered secularism. The courts are under increasing pressure to go along with that vision.Can Shariah provide the necessary resources for such a rethinking of the judicial role? In its essence, Shariah aspires to be a law that applies equally to every human, great or small, ruler or ruled. No one is above it, and everyone at all times is bound by it. But the history of Shariah also shows that the ideals of the rule of law cannot be implemented in a vacuum. For that, a state needs actually effective institutions, which must be reinforced by regular practice and by the recognition of actors within the system that they have more to gain by remaining faithful to its dictates than by deviating from them.The odds of success in the endeavor to deliver the rule of law are never high. Nothing is harder than creating new institutions with the capacity to balance executive dominance — except perhaps avoiding the temptation to overreach once in power. In Iran, the Islamists have discredited their faith among many ordinary people, and a similar process may be under way in Iraq. Still, with all its risks and dangers, the Islamists’ aspiration to renew old ideas of the rule of law while coming to terms with contemporary circumstances is bold and noble — and may represent a path to just and legitimate government in much of the Muslim world.

* Noah Feldman, a contributing writer for the magazine, is a law professor at Harvard University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from his book “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State,” which will be published later this month.

Archbishop Calls for Some Sharia Law in Britain - The Speech of the Year

The archbishop of Canterbury has called for a limited application of Sharia, or Islamic, law in Britain, winning immediate praise from British Muslims, but immediate rejection from Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman.

Rowan Williams and Sharia Law - (BBC News 24)

This is Mohammed Shafiq from the Ramadhan Foundation, the UK's leading Muslim organisation on BBC News 24 discussing Archbishop Rowan Williams comments on Sharia Law in the UK. More at www.ramadhanfoundation.com

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams Spoke about Sharia Law on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4
Thursday 7 Feb 2008

"In an exclusive interview, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams tells us that sharia law seems unavoidable in parts of Britain. Why is a Christian bishop arguing for an Islamic legal system?"

Editor: This should be a wake-up call for some Muslims who still have doubt on Shariah law

UK Muslims Welcome "Civil" Shari`ah

By Mohammad Sabry IOL Staff

CAIRO — British Muslim leaders cautiously welcomed on Friday, February 8, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams's call for adoption of some Shari`ah aspects in Britain to deal with civil issues of marriage and divorce.
"We welcome his position for applying some Shari`ah aspects in Britain," Dr Daud Abullah, Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), told IslamOnline.net on Friday, February 8, over the phone from London.
"We believe that if this system is adopted, it will help remove some abuses and complaints facing British Muslims."Williams, the spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said Thursday that the adoption of some parts of Shari`ah alongside Britain's legal system "seems unavoidable."
He said Shari`ah should be introduced as an officially sanctioned legal alternative when it comes to civil issues concerning Muslims such as marriage and financial matters.
"These comments further underline the attempts by both our great faiths to build respect and tolerance," said Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, an education welfare body.
"Shari`ah law for civil matters is something which has been introduced in some western countries with much success.
"I believe that Muslims would take huge comfort from the Government allowing civil matters being resolved according to their faith," he told the Guardian on Friday.
Leaders across the political spectrum criticized Williams's call for "constructive accommodation." He was also lambasted by the press.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman has already distanced the premier from the remarks, stressing that "British law should apply in this country, based on British values."
Misunderstood
The MCB leader said that the Archbishop's comments have been misunderstood.
"Whenever Shari`ah is mentioned, it usually comes to the mind with the false image of cutting hands and penalties," Abdullah told IOL.
"It is not about the penal system. It is much more about civil system concerning marriage, divorce and inheritance."
Abdullah said that British laws fall short of tackling Muslim issues of marriage, divorce, maintenance and inheritance
"If a woman marries and she is divorced or her husband dies, she will not be able to get her dowry," he said.
Under English law, people may devise their own way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process.
Shari`ah courts and the Jewish Beth Din, which already exist in the UK, come into this category.
"Self-styled Shari`ah courts have been in existence since 20 years to resolve marriage disputes. These courts will be recognized under British law, If Shari`ah is applied," Abdullah said.
Some Muslim leaders fear that the Archbishop's comments will play into the hands of right-wingers to fuel Islamophobia.
"I welcome debate on this issue but my personal feeling is that the vast majority of Muslims do not want to see a parallel or separate system for Muslims in our society," Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a prominent Leicester imam, told the Times.
A 2006 Guardian/ICM survey showed that 61 percent of the Muslim minority — estimated at some two million — wanted to see their social life guided by Shari`ah "so long as the penalties did not contravene British law."
The respondents said they wanted time off at places of work for prayers and to resolve their social problems as divorce, child custody and inheritance in accordance with Shari`ah, but are equally committed to greater participation in British life.

Archbishop defends Sharia remarks

The Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his comments on Sharia law, following widespread criticism.

A statement on his website said that he "certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law".
However, at least two General Synod members have called for Dr Rowan Williams to resign following the row.
Col Edward Armitstead told the Daily Telegraph: "I don't think he is the man for the job."
Dr Williams had called for parts of Sharia law to be recognised in the UK, and he is said to be in a state of shock and dismayed by the criticism he has received from his own Church.
Islamic Sharia law is a legal and social code designed to help Muslims live their daily lives, but it has proved controversial in the West for the extreme nature of some of its punishments.
He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds of this nation
Rt Rev Stephen Lowe
Col Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, said Dr Williams should move to work in a university setting instead of leading the Anglican Church.
"One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas."
Alison Ruoff, a Synod member from London, said: "Many people, huge numbers of people, would be greatly relieved [if he resigned] because he sits on the fence over all sorts of things and we need strong, Christian, biblical leadership right now, as opposed to somebody who huffs and puffs around and vacillates from one thing to another.
"He's a very able, a brilliant scholar as a man but in terms of being a leader of the Christian community I think he's actually at the moment a disaster."

'Quite disgraceful'

Brig William Dobbie, a former Synod member, described the Archbishop as "a disaster, a tragic mistake".
The statement on the Archbishop's website also said Dr Williams had pointed out that "as a matter of fact, certain provisions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law".

The statement said he was "exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience".
It also said his principal aim was "to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state".
And he said he did not initiate the idea but simply agreed when that proposition was put to him.
The most senior woman priest in the Church of England, the Dean of Salisbury the Very Reverend June Osborne, said Dr Williams was right to discuss Sharia law - despite it provoking controversy.
"We can say he may have been politically naïve [but] I don't think he was.
"Our society needs to be provoked into talking about these things. I would say that all of the law of Britain has got to work within the very high standards of human rights and Christian principles."
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention" on the discussion of the place of Islam and Muslims in modern Britain.
A spokesman said: "The MCB observes, with some sadness, the hysterical misrepresentations of his speech which serves only to drive a wedge between British people."

'Lampooned'

The Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, said he was dismayed at the "knee-jerk" reaction to Dr Williams' comments.
"We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest Archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day," he told BBC Radio 4.
"He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds of this nation.
"The way he has been ridiculed, lampooned and treated by some people and indeed some of the media within this process, is quite disgraceful."
Synod members will have the opportunity of tabling a motion to discuss the issue at the body's biannual meeting, starting on Monday.
It is more likely that Dr Williams will receive warm support, such is the respect and affection for him among Anglicans, BBC News religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said.
Dr Williams evidently wanted to provoke discussion about Sharia, but not the impassioned and coThe statement said he was "exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience".
It also said his principal aim was "to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state".
And he said he did not initiate the idea but simply agreed when that proposition was put to him.
The most senior woman priest in the Church of England, the Dean of Salisbury the Very Reverend June Osborne, said Dr Williams was right to discuss Sharia law - despite it provoking controversy.
"We can say he may have been politically naïve [but] I don't think he was.
"Our society needs to be provoked into talking about these things. I would say that all of the law of Britain has got to work within the very high standards of human rights and Christian principles."
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention" on the discussion of the place of Islam and Muslims in modern Britain.
A spokesman said: "The MCB observes, with some sadness, the hysterical misrepresentations of his speech which serves only to drive a wedge between British people."
'Lampooned'
The Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, said he was dismayed at the "knee-jerk" reaction to Dr Williams' comments.
"We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest Archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day," he told BBC Radio 4.
"He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds of this nation.
"The way he has been ridiculed, lampooned and treated by some people and indeed some of the media within this process, is quite disgraceful."
Synod members will have the opportunity of tabling a motion to discuss the issue at the body's biannual meeting, starting on Monday.
It is more likely that Dr Williams will receive warm support, such is the respect and affection for him among Anglicans, BBC News religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said.
Dr Williams evidently wanted to provoke discussion about Sharia, but not the impassioned and confused debate that has taken place, our correspondent added. --(BBC, 9 Feb 08)

Sharia law and the British legal system

The Archbishop of Canterbury's desire to bring some aspects of Sharia law into the mainstream legal system is bound to prove controversial.

But his view is that if Britain is to develop cohesive communities, the role that religion plays in the lives of some citizens must be taken seriously.
He argues that Muslims find themselves "faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty" and that Britain will only be able to come to terms with its multi-faith society if its legal system learns to adapt.
The archbishop says that anxieties "haunt the discussion of the place of Muslims in British society", and that sensational reporting of opinion polls means that any debate around Sharia has become distorted.

He refers to the Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, who has written that "many Muslim intellectuals do not even dare to refer to the concept for fear of frightening people or arousing suspicion of all their work".
The archbishop accepts that Sharia is often the justification for appalling legal practices and punishments - but that is not what he is calling for.
"Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states," Dr Williams says.
'Sweeping judgement'
He concedes that his views put him at odds with the European Court of Human Rights, which regards Sharia as incompatible with democracy.
The archbishop regards the court's view as a "pretty sweeping judgement" that fails to account for the fact that there is no fixed code of Sharia law but different interpretations in different countries.
Dr Williams is keen that secular states think seriously about the impact that religion has on the lives of citizens, and as such that the legal system should be adapted to accommodate such beliefs.

He cites the example of medical professionals being able to opt out of performing abortions as an example "which is difficult to see why the principle cannot be extended in other areas".
The archbishop is clear that care is needed to distinguish "purely cultural habits from seriously-rooted matters of faith and discipline" when legal disputes occur - but that a system which takes Sharia seriously could be able to achieve that aim.
So why is a Christian archbishop advocating the place of Islamic law?
Because he fears the other option is a "standoff" where members of minority religious communities feel that the gap between their principles and the legal system of the state is so vast, the only option open to them is to opt out of the mainstream legal system.
That, in the archbishop's view, is a recipe for even greater levels of community fragmentation.

Medina Mosque - UK

Medina Mosque
Sheffield

UK

Archbishop of Canterbury: 'UK should adopt sharia law for Muslims'

The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England said on Thursday the introduction of Shari'a (Islamic law) for British Muslims was "unavoidable."
Speaking on BBC Radio, Dr. Rowan Williams said that Muslims should be able to choose whether to have matters such as marital disputes dealt with under Shari'a law or the British legal system.
He said that the introduction of Shari'a law would mean that British Muslims would no longer have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty."
The Anglican leader advocated giving it official status in the UK on the grounds that it would help maintain social cohesion, as some Muslims do not relate to the British legal system.
"Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Shari'a court," he said, for example.
"It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Shari'a are already recognized in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system," he said.
A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain confirmed that many British Muslims already use Shari'a in their day-to-day lives, such as banking and marriage, and added that the same principle of separate laws could easily be accepted for other faiths.
The archbishop said introducing Shari'a law for marriages would combat the problem of forced marriage because Islam required the consent of both parties.
"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognized by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances," he said. "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law."
The archbishop said he was not proposing the adoption of extreme interpretations of Shari'a, as practiced in some repressive regimes. "But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them. In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate."
The National Secular Society criticized his comments and said it was another example of Britain "sleepwalking to segregation... You can't have a country where you have separate laws for separate faith groups."
Williams said his proposal would only work if Shari'a law was properly understood, rather than seen through the eyes of biased media reports that "cloud" the issue.

The archbishop is joint president of the Council of Christians and Jews in the UK.

UK Islamic organization condemns ban on Qaradawi

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has condemned the UK government's decision to refuse a visa to renowned Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, warning it would send the wrong message about the country's traditional right to free speech.
The MCB, the UK's largest Muslim umbrella group with over 500 affiliates, said it recognized Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been "under immense pressure from the pro-Zionist and neo-conservative lobby in recent weeks to take this decision." "It is regrettable that the government has finally given way to these unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader (David Cameron) whose government had in fact allowed Dr Qaradawi to visit the UK five times between 1995-97," it said.
MCB secretary general Abdul Bari said that the Islamic scholar, who has been outspoken in support the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation, enjoyed "unparalleled respect and influence throughout the Muslim world." "I am afraid this decision will send the wrong message to Muslims everywhere about the state of British society and culture. Britain has had a long and established tradition of free speech, debate and intellectual pursuit," Bari said.
He said the principles of free speech were worth defending, especially as British government has claimed, it would like to see them spread throughout the world.
The ban from entering Britain comes after a sustained campaign over several years, led by the Zionist lobby. The sheikh, who lives in Qatar and has written over 50 books, previously has been a frequent visitor.

Mohammed second most popular name in Britain

By Rukshana Choudhury

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that more baby boys are being named Mohammed. For the last decade Jack has been the most popular boys’ name in England and Wales. But multicultural British children named after Prophet Muhammad came a close second. It first entered the top 30 list in 2000 and its popularity continued to rise by 12% last year, and this popularity shows no indication of slowing down, giving the name the potential to be number one next year. While Mohammed is in 17th place, its position is No 2 when all 14 varied spellings of the name are taken into account. The 14 different spellings, which were shared by 5,991 newborn boys last year, beat Thomas to third place, followed by Joshua and Oliver. The name Mohammed comes from the Arabic script and its various spellings which include: Muhammad, Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhamed and Mohammod, depend on the diverse ways of pronouncing the name, and reflect the diverse ethnic makeup of Britain’s Muslim population. . Mohammed, which means “one who is praiseworthy”, is often given to boys as an honorary prefix. It is then followed by the name which they are commonly known by. Professor of ethnic relations at Warwick University, Muhammad Anwar, said, “Muslim parents like to have something that shows a link with their religion or with the Prophet.” 3 per cent of the British population is Muslim which amounts to 1.6 million people. However, the Muslim birthrate is approximately triple the non-Muslim one. The official figures from the ONS confirmed that Grace is the most popular name for girls, beating 2006 top name, Olivia, to third place. The most popular name for girls born to Muslim parents in 2006 was Aisha, in 110th place. The name, meaning “living”, also belonged to one of Prophet Muhammad’s wives. Mufti Abdul Barkatullah, a former imam at the Finchley mosque in northwest London, told The Muslim News, “Parents who name their son Muhammad believe that the name has an effect on their personality and future characteristics. They are saying that this boy will be of good character.”

Muslims back Livingstone re-election as London mayor

More than 60 Muslim organisations and individuals have taken the unprecedented decision to declare their support for the re-election of Ken Livingstone as London mayor.

A joint pledge, published by the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) Thursday, said that Livingstone - a left-wing member of the ruling Labour Party - had been an outstanding mayor since he became the capital's first elected mayor in 2000.

"He has stood out in support of a multi-cultural society and has supported the Muslim communities of the city against racism and Islamophobia as well as all other minorities against all types of prejudice," it said.

"His stands and policies have constantly championed justice in the Middle East and around the world, freedom for the Palestinians and withdrawal of occupying troops from Iraq; a rare trait of modern-day public figures," the statement read.

BMI, which includes members from the Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Council of Britain, was set up two years ago to combat Islamophobia, encourage Muslim participation in British public life, and improve Muslim relations with the West.

Their call comes after the main opposition Conservatives selected former prominent frontbench spokesman Boris Johnson as its candidate to stand against Livingstone in the third elections for London mayor in May.

Johnson, a former editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine and with flamboyant character, is seeking to rival the idiosyncratic personality of Livingstone, whose popularity remains high in opinion polls.

The BMI declaration said that the current mayor, who helped to win the 2012 Olympics, had "enhanced London's standing in the world and helped improve the lives of all of the city's communities." "It is in the best interest of the Muslim communities of London, and indeed all Londoners, to back Mr. Livingstone in this year's mayoral elections," it declared.

But Johnson was reported to have dismissed the campaign, saying that he was "not remotely worried" by the statement of support and warned against "divide and rule" politics.

"When anything is signed by so-called community leaders, I take it with a big pinch of salt," he said.

"My grandfather was a Muslim and so was my great-grandfather. I am proud of my Muslim ancestry," he was quoted saying by the Guardian newspaper Thursday.

Analysts have suggested that the capital's 10 per cent Muslim population, four times the national average, could be decisive in the outcome of May's vote, which is also expected to be the closest yet. --(IRNA, 3 Jan 07)

Dr Bari: Government stoking Muslim tension

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain does not mince his words on integration

Should integration work both way?

Gordon Brown announced plans to require immigrants to learn English and Downing Street said the Prime Minister wanted to double the number of days that terrorist suspects can be detained without trial. Then, just as the Metropolitan Police was being censured for shooting the Stockwell One, the Lyrical Terrorist became the first woman to be convicted of terrorist crimes.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), thinks the Government is stoking the tension. "There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us," he says. "The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society."
The 53-year-old special needs teacher has a gentle manner and a quiet voice - he describes himself as a "community spokesman" rather than a "religious leader" - but he does not mince his words.
Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.

"Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society."
There is, in his view, no such thing as Islamic terrorism.
"Terrorists are terrorists, they may use religion but we shouldn't say Muslim terrorists, it stigmatises the whole community. We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists." Dr Bari thinks Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made the extremists' job easier by giving a bleak picture of the threat on the eve of the Queen's Speech.
"I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism. Muslim young people are as vulnerable as any others. Under this climate of fear they will begin to feel victimised."
The Prime Minister's plan to increase the length of time terrorist suspects can be detained without trial is also, he believes, misguided.
"Even the police haven't asked for more than 28 days. As far as we know there is no clear evidence of the need for more time."
Control orders and stop and search powers are further increasing the sense of alienation among Muslims, Dr Bari says, and the Metropolitan Police are not helping matters either.
"There was institutional racism and institutions as massive as the Met find it hard to change. They need more Muslim police officers. I'm not going to use the term trigger happy - sometimes the police can make mistakes - but they need to do their job in a better way."
Sir Salman Rushdie should never have been knighted, he says. "He caused a huge amount of distress and discordance with his book, it should have been pulped."
Critics say the MCB - an umbrella organisation with 500 affiliates - has itself contributed to the growing sense of unease in Britain. The Government has cut funding to the council following claims that it had links with extremists. A Tory report this year accused it of promoting segregation.
Dr Bari insists he is simply trying to unite disparate communities. "On the one hand we are accused of not engaging, being insular, and on the other hand of being too political. We can't win."
The MCB was criticised for boycotting Holocaust Day but he says he did not mean to offend Jewish people: "It should be inclusive, commemorating all massacres."
According to a recent report by the Policy Exchange think-tank, the bookshop at the east London Mosque, which Dr Bari chairs, stocks extremist literature.
"The bookshops are independent businesses," he says. "We can't just go in and tell them what to sell … I will see what books they keep, if they have one book which looks like it is inciting hatred, do they have counter books on the same shelf?"
He is more careful about who is allowed to preach in the mosque. "If I hear of a specific preacher who is inciting hatred I will ban him from preaching but I cannot disallow him from praying."
In Dr Bari's view, suicide bombers are victims as well as aggressors. "I deal with emotionally damaged children," he explains. "Children come to hate when they don't get enough care and love. They are probably bullied, it makes a young person angry and vulnerable.
"The extreme case could be suicide bombers, it is all they have … The people who become suicide bombers are really vulnerable."
Although he stresses there is no justification for suicide bombing - "killing innocent people is completely forbidden, Islam is very emphatic on that" - he says British foreign policy has driven Muslims into the arms of the extremists.
"Criminal people have used that as a weapon to encourage young people, those who don't have any anchor in themselves, [to become suicide bombers]. Iraq has been a disaster, the country has been destroyed for no reason, that had an impact on the Muslim psyche."
His passion is to integrate Muslim and British cultures - he says integration must go both ways.
"Everybody can learn from everyone. Some of the Muslim principles can help social cohesion - family, marriage, raising children with boundaries, giving to the poor, not being too greedy."
British people could, in his view, benefit from arranged marriages. "I prefer to call them assisted marriages," he says.
"Marriage should not be forced on people but parents can be a catalyst … Young people are emotional, they want idealism. Older people have gone through all sorts of things and become a bit more experienced. A child will always want to eat chocolate but if he does then he will become fat. He needs to be given things that are good for him too."
"Alcohol is the worst drug long-term," he says, and adds that the Government should consider banning drinking in public places, as it has done with smoking.
Dr Bari believes Britain would benefit from a little more morality: "Religion has principles that can help society … Sex before marriage is unacceptable in Islam … On adultery and living together we should try to go back to the religiously informed style of life that helps society"
Abortion should also be made more difficult. "By the time a foetus is 12 weeks old our religion says that the child has got a spirit." Homosexuality is "unacceptable from the religious point of view".
Is stoning ever justified? "It depends what sort of stoning and what circumstances," he replies. "When our prophet talked about stoning for adultery he said there should be four [witnesses] - in realistic terms that's impossible. It's a metaphor for disapproval."
There should be more modesty too. "You shouldn't be revealing your body so much that it can be tempting to other people. I hope my daughter wouldn't wear a bikini but I also hope she wouldn't wear a burka."
Dr Bari runs guidance courses for parents of all faiths. "Children are like plants, if you don't look after them they will grow wild and weeds can come in." The same is true of Britain, he says. "There is plenty of freedom in Western society but boundaries are sometimes hard to see."

- (The Telegraph, 10 Nov 07)

Record Price for 13th-Century Quran

LONDON (AP) — A Quran written in 1203, believed to be the oldest known complete copy, has sold for more than $2.3 million at an auction.
The holy book, which had been estimated to sell for up to $715,000, fetched $2,327,300 at Tuesday's auction in London, Christie's said.
That was a record auction price for a Quran or any type of Islamic manuscript, the auctioneer Christie's said.
A nearly complete, 10th-century Kufic Quran, thought to be from North Africa or the near East, sold $1,870,000.
Both were offered for sale by the Hispanic Society of America, and were purchased by trade buyers in London, Christie's said.
The record-setting Quran was signed by Yahya bin Muhammad ibn 'Umar, dated 17 Ramadan 599 (June 1203).
It was acquired in Cairo in 1905 by Archer Milton Huntington, who founded the Hispanic Society in New York City in 1904. Huntington, the adopted son of railroad and ship-building magnate Collis P. Huntington, died in 1955.
The calligraphy in the manuscript was done in gold outlined in thin black lines, and the marginal notes are in silver outlined in red.
The kufic Quran bridges a gap between the earlier style, copied on parchment of horizontal format, and the later style of vertical composition, often on paper, Christie's catalog said.
The kufic script takes its name from Kufah in Iraq, an early center of Islamic scholarship, according to the British Library.
Because the script's vertical strokes were very short but the horizontal strokes elongated, it was written on papers in a landscape format.