telegraph.co.uk

Sharia is no law for Britain

Posted by Christopher Howse     
Tags: 
Islam, Muslims, Archbishop of Canterbury, Sharia law, Rowen Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have lost the use of his senses. He told the BBC today that the application of Sharia in Britain "seems unavoidable". This would entail lashing for fornication and amputation for theft.

Veiled women in Britain
The rights of women have moved on, says Dr Williams

Dr Williams is a good and learned man, but he is mistaken to think that Islamic law works like English law or the sympathetic deliberations of a middle-class Welshman.
Indeed he said in his BBC interview: "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; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".

Sharia means literally the road to a watering place: a clear path to be followed. It is translated as "law", but it governs without restriction, as an infallible doctrine of duties, the whole of the religious, political, social, domestic and private life of those who profess Islam.

How would extreme punishments and bad treatment of women be prevented where the jurisdiction of Sharia was recognised? In Islam Sharia is the law of God as revealed in the Koran and through the behaviour and words of Mohammed.

Like Judaism, Islam is a thoroughly legalistic religion, and though there are no priests, there are clergy in the sense of men who know the law and make judgments. A religious scholar who gives opinions is called a mufti; his legal opinion is called a fatwa. The latter word is familiar now in a way it used not to be before silly old Salman Rushdie was condemned to death.

"I don’t know enough about the detail of the law in the Islamic law in this context," Dr Williams said, "I’m simply saying that there are ways of looking at marital dispute for example within discussions that go on among some contemporary scholars which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them."

Since the days of the Prophet, Dr Williams thinks, "the rights and liberties of women has moved on and the principle, the vision, that animates the Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that." But Sharia does not rely on mere principles. It derives from the revelation of God, which may not be abrogated. Dr Williams referred to "principles laid down in the Quran". Here is one (4:34): "Admonish those women whose rebelliousness you fear, shun them in their resting-places and hit them. If they obey you, do not seek a further way against them."

How does Dr Williams address the prohibition on a Muslim woman to marry a man who is not a Muslim?

I am sorry to say he has made relations between Christians and Muslims more difficult.


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