Why Shariah?

[duncvis]

Just stumbled on an interesting and well written article regarding Sharia, and its historical context.

Why Shariah?
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.

click for full article - there's a fair bit more to go at

any thoughts?

[Al Swearegen]

Sounds like a good idea by and large. They allow an amount of Aboriginal tribal law here.

[SovaNu]

can someone give it in a nutshell?

[Lucifer]

rowan williams has the misfortune of being an intellectual, and so can't phrase things so that people who aren't so cerebral can understand what he really means.  sad but true.

the concept of "tribal"/domestic law is sensible, if you ask me.  i can see why people get all the horror of the more extreme bits roped in with it, though.

[odeon]

Article won't load. 

Interesting and far more balanced than the usual views on Shariah laws, IMO. They've separated the church from the state around here--I didn't know that they hadn't done so in the UK. To me, it makes perfect sense to allow Islamic and Jewish courts there to handle matters of marriage and divorce.

[duncvis]

Strange. Article is loading now. 

[Lucifer]

that'll be yer weirdy scandiwegian intergeeks, i reckon.

[odeon]

Or maybe it's just me? 

[Lucifer]

never mind.  you can't help being scandiwegian. 

[SovaNu]

i think those who are atheists or agnostics or outside any church should be tried without any input from any church.

[Al Swearegen]

Agreed!

[Alex179]

As long as they don't go around murdering women who cheated on their husbands, sure they can let the Islamic people handle their own legal matters involving their own sanctioned marriages.   Even though the burden of proof is high, the killings in Turkey got bad enough to necessitate a reformation.   It is just fucked that they kill a woman for adultery and the man gets in no trouble basically.   

[SovaNu]

i think law should be separate from religion because people are often brainwashed from birth or forced into said religion in other ways.

[Sophgay]

 i don't see why there should be several different groups of laws for different people
religion should have nothing to do with it. i don't care whether someone's christian, athetist, muslim, jewish, whatever... the same laws should apply to everyone.
there should be no "christian courts" and "non-christian courts." there should be secular british courts, where the same laws apply to anyone living here. another reason why i support disestablishment of the church of england

[SovaNu]

yeah religion is hockeypuckey.