Archbishop Causes Religious Row
Fury Over Comments about British Shari’ah State
A row has erupted after the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested Islamic Shari'ah law could be incorporated into the English legal system. Yet it doesn't seem justified.
After Dr Rowman Williams said that he foresees some “constructive accommodation” of the law within the British legal system, Christians, secularists and politicians spoke out with a single voice of condemnation.
Shari’ah law is a legal and social code designed to help Muslims live their daily lives, but has proved controversial in the West for the extreme nature of some of its punishments.
What Dr Williams Said
In BBC Radio 4’s The World At One, Dr Williams said:
"It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Shari’ah are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.
We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances.
There are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them."
His comments have already fuelled the debate over multiculturalism in the UK and brought criticisms of being anti-British and, even from his own church, of being anti-Christian.
Non-Christian Law Already Operating in Britain
Beth Din already operate in some parts of Britain and act as a place of arbitration for members of the Orthodox Jewish communities. The country's main Beth Din at Finchley in north London oversees a wide range of cases including divorce settlements, contractual rows between traders and tenancy disputes.
Under English law, people may legally 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 Beth Din, which already exist in the UK, come into this category.
While religious leaders in the UK's Jewish and Muslim communities have not sought to enforce their own versions of criminal law, they have steadily built up their capacity to deal with civil matters within their own religious codes.
The court cannot force anyone to come within its jurisdiction, but people are bound by English law to abide by the court’s decision once someone agrees to settle a dispute in a religious court. This is because under English law people may devise their own way to settle a dispute before an agreed third party.
The Consequences of Religious Law
Although Alistair McBay, spokesman for the National Secular Society, said that the Archbishop's comments undermine the equality of all citizens under the law of a plural society, the system could instead aid the integration of minority groups.
As long as the various courts work in harmony with the existing English law and don’t work to destabilise it, they may act as a cheaper and quicker method of resolving non-criminal cases.
The Archbishop has been astounded by the harsh reaction to his comments – and even calls for him to resign – with even religious organisations refusing the idea of a dual legal system. His attempt at religious and social reintegration includes something which is already happening and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention". Yet he is being held up as the scapegoat for those people who are so precious about England and English law, they see anything which attempts to harmonise different cultures within them as eroding them.
