Guidelines issued on Sharia Wills (ie unequal shares to female children)

[mumblechum1]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/islamic-law-to-be-enshrined-in-british-law-as-solicitors-get-guidelines-on-sharia-compliant-wills-9210682.html

Must admit I have only been asked on 2 occasions in many years of will-writing to make Sharia compliant wills, and both times advised that they would not stand up in court and so in one case the client went elsewhere, in the other he agreed to divide his estate equally between his sons and daughters when I explained the risk of litigation.

I am saddened if this is now going to change.

You are also ignoring that of the 66%, it doesn't automatically go to the biological children, they get a share

No, because the 33% doesn't automatically go to the adopted child either, they get a share (or nothing) as well, lumped in with the non-Muslim beneficiaries.

The problem is that Sharia law isn't compatible with British/Western notions of adoption, where the child is considered an equal part of the family. Hideous.

Pffft. Under standard British law nothing in a will goes automatically to anyone, the person writing the will has complete free reign.

This hand-wringing over hypothetical adopted children is disingenuous nonsense, it's the thought of Muslims in Britain that you're not happy about. How dare we have our Muslim ways, we should tug our forlocks and be eternally grateful for being allowed here.

The real issue is that the national media, either for reasons of being ignorant as to how the law works, or due to malice, have managed to turn a non-story into Muslims Changing British Law Forever.

Gosh

That is pretty ripe! - accusing us of being rascists because you refuse to face the fact that Islam discriminates against categories of people.

I thnk you have well and truly lost the argument when you resort to calling people rascists.

I'll save your shame by asking MN to delete it.

Good night.

This hand-wringing over hypothetical adopted children is disingenuous nonsense, it's the thought of Muslims in Britain that you're not happy about. How dare we have our Muslim ways, we should tug our forlocks and be eternally grateful for being allowed here.

Spare me the victimhood. If you indulge is socially distasteful practices (and lets face it, discrimination against children from extremely vulnerable groups is disgusting) you get the flak you deserve. You've argued your case clearly and when posters haven't agreed with you you've embarrasingly dropped into Islamophobia mode.

Islam is a pretty big established religion in the UK, so don't play the forrin victim "oh noos, I'm not allowed here' card with me. It's home grown bigotry as far as I'm concerned (and I have a personal interest in the rights of adopted children and I don't give a toss whether the bigotry against them is from Christians, Muslims or Scientologists or whatever). Sharia wills are not compatible with UK social norms when it comes to adopted children in particular or women in general, so they shouldn't be applied.

(On a side note if you want to see how Sharia family law running alongside English common law principles goes wrong, look at Malaysia)

If the Catholics or the CoE were arguing the sort of discrimination you are advocating they'd rightly get the same kicking. Every thread where a Muslim gets called out for their bigotry gets the 'You wouldn't say this about Christians' comment and every thread that attacks Christian bigotry results in "you wouldn't say this if I were Muslim' remarks. Religion poisons everything. You would be embarassed to argue your point had it not been religiously endorsed.

I would be hugely surprised if MN deleted my post. Interesting that someone who refers to religious people as "deluded" should be so thin-skinned.

Cat, disinheriting your children for the local donkey sanctuary isn't congruent with UK social norms either, but it is still permitted.

Being "in line with UK social norms" has no impact on what someone's will should be. If for some reason, you think Muslims have a greater responsibility to parcel out their estate "in line with UK social norms" then Mrs Smith who's given all her money to the cats home, then that is discriminatory and I have to wonder why.

Just about everything is permitted in wills (estoppel issues aside). But if someone divided their estate between their children, and distinguished detrimentally between adopted and biological children on those grounds alone, they would rightly be judged by society to be a dreadful parent. "My particular religion says it's fine" doesn't cut it. The move away from default equitable splits isn't a good one, even if the right to give it all to the cats home remains.

This hand-wringing over hypothetical adopted children is disingenuous nonsense, it's the thought of Muslims in Britain that you're not happy about. How dare we have our Muslim ways, we should tug our forlocks and be eternally grateful for being allowed here.

Gorilla you do realise you have just accused a poster of racism with absolutely no basis for doing so?

To get back to the point; is there not a technical difficulty insofar as the Shariah definition of legitimacy differing from the usual UK civil law definition?

Daughters aren't given an unequal share. The trashy tabloids apparently an authority on islam since 9/11. please source out orthodox muslim sites and you will see what a mountain you are making. it's like Chinese whispers on the net.

I feel like gosh, it is true there is a section of society and it's growing due to media hype, that doesn't want muslims here, who cares that they were born here they're muslim kick um out. Mostly lies that folks don't seem to research because they're too lazy and believe everything they are told. Or perhaps want to believe to continue their cycle of hate?

I feel like gosh, it is true there is a section of society and it's growing due to media hype, that doesn't want muslims here, who cares that they were born here they're muslim kick um out. Mostly lies that folks don't seem to research because they're too lazy and believe everything they are told. Or perhaps want to believe to continue their cycle of hate?

Just you are falling into exactly the same trap as Gosh and as a result you both weaken your own argument (which is a shame for anyone agreeing you, and for the quality of the debate as a whole because Gosh was defending her position quite effectively in several regards).

If it is worth debating, it is worth debating on the issues.

Nearly all posters are not talking about UK law here. Scotland has a different legal system and laws. In Scotland, you can not leave your assets to who you want to. A certain proportion has to go to any remaining wife/husband and children. So please stop referring to UK law.

Crescent It has been presumably been possible up until now for British Muslims to make Shariah compliant wills by seeking dual advice, is that correct?

Am I also right in assuming that arrangement has proved unsatisfactory some?

(I'm just wondering what the background to all this is)

I'm sorry fide if I come across weak but what do you want me to feel as a muslim. Wake up turn on radio it's almost everyday a muslim topic on. if not discussed thoroughly mentioned in news briefly.

Turn on internet always a muslim story guaranteed 99% of the time negative . No news is positive with muslims I guess our kind can do no good for society.
If you're not muslim you wouldn't understand why I feel as I do.

What happens if you're the end of your line and have no relatives to leave the 66% of your estate to?

(I think this would be far more of an interesting story if it were somewhere like France, where you can't do what you like with your will as you can under English law.)

I am blessed with an active imagination just and I do sympathise.

Which is precisely why I groan when I see you guys perform the kind of rhetorical nose-dive you just did.

Any bigoted idiot who wanders in here and reads what you two just said, will love that you took that road. Trust me.

Be better, be cleverer.

I'm surprised no-one has commissioned independent academic analysis of various newspapers to expose some of the Islamaphobia, actually.

(Slight tangent but it seems we only ever get to have these conversations in a DM-polluted pond, which helps no-one)

As a side issue I have no inheritance parents just about scrimped up to pay bills. I suspect many muslim parents in the uk are not particularly religiously inclined with regards to wills. But I think they will be more interested in marriage and divorce issues with islamic groundings.

My parents and all those people they knew in community are muslim and the same. Religion doesn't seem to come into it. I wonder where the demand has come from?

I have no inheritance parents scrimped to pay bills. but their small terraced home divided by seven equal shares will leave me a tiny sum, if I am still alive.

I think I saw a documentary about Sharia family law in the UK last year just. It was eye-opening.

It does, on the face of it, seem more productive to be putting energy into getting the two systems working well together, certainly less problematic than trying to glue them together at strategic points.

Well that was sort of the point I was groping towards, Crescent - there is no problem with anyone making a will in accordance with Shariah law, under UK civil law anyway. Presumably the solicitor will not necessarily be doing the complicated maths so some kind of Shariah expert will advise anyway, so why are the Law Society getting involved? Fixing something that wasn't broken surely?

The more of these issues crop up, the more I think we should just disestablish the church (of E) and secularize the state and let everyone maintain their religious and cultural practices alongside that. Definitely fewer squabbles that way.

My post criticising the Law Society also said I do not like the Engilsh principle for a few aristocratic families that sons inherit all. I am equally against that and indeed anyone who does not like those rules do start lobbying - some female oldest daughters at the moment have a movement following the royal act (which says if Prince George's first child is female then she will become queen rather than his younger sons).

We all know that English law allows you to cut adult children off without a penny and that Islam was set up mostly in a well meaning way in terms appropriate for primitive sexist people living in deserts where women were property and indeed was designed to give them more rights, not fewer ( if your husband has to look after you even if he takes a few more wives that is protective in those olden times although obviously a load of rubbish today).

What I don't like is the Law Society giving advice which does add any comment such as of course if a client is choosing to discriminate on grounds of race or age in a will then your duty to the court is to point that out. That statement would be very helpful and could be used where a family is favouring boys. There are plenty where girls will be regarded as supported by their husbands (i.e. a good lot of mumsnetters) so not needing so much inheritance. Tatler even had an article last year about "put the girl in a comp as she'll only marry and breed and buy the son an education at Eton as he will be working for life and having to support a family". Sexism is all about us. The sooner we root it out in all colours and creeds the better.

The Law Society should have avoided this. Sometimes money is dirty and we soil our hands by taking that whether it is from the white English C of E aristocrat wanting to give his sons much and his daughters nothing or your average Islamic client.

Primitive? Would you care to point out when the average woman in the UK was granted the right to inherit and own property in her own right? I guarantee it was far later than 1400 years ago, which is when these laws were established.

Fideline - there have been many analysis of the British press and how negative they are towards Muslims. As I keep saying, my main concern here is the media coverage, which in the case of this story is inaccurate and provocative.

The idea that Sharia law is a law for primitive people in desert, is one soaked in Orientalism that completely ignores centuries of Islamic scholarship on the matter. As I've said laws have to be both interpreted and implemented and there is leeway in this depending on circumstances.

However, I must make clear at this point that Muslims have to follow the laws of the country they are in, so Muslims (as a general rule) are not looking to alter or overturn UK law, but to find ways to work within in.