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.

Do we know there is more domestic violence in the british muslim community than in the general population?

What I object to (until someone persuades me otherwise) is the LS signalling approval or acceptance of a discriminatory framework.

Totally agree.

It is the Law Society - not the Laws Society.

So now we are looking at Domestic violence stats in the muslim community? What does that have anything to do with LS or shariah wills?

If you truly cared about equality, then you would be trying to change english law which doesnt enforce equal inheritance to adopted children or biological children or to anyone for that matter. You would look at the many farmers who dont divide their assets equally - and mostly its the son that inherits the vast chunk, the aristocracy, where the son is favoured, the royal lineage, where the son is favoured - until very very very recently.

I will leave the white feminist saviour complex continue spewing bigoted bile about 'primitive' religion, DV in muslim community etc etc.
it will get you nowhere. Muslims are here to stay. Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the world and if that threatens you and some guidance within the english legal system threatens you and your values, then you need to take a closer look at your own prejudices. Be better, be cleverer.

One person has mentioned DV - one person. Please keep it in perspective.

you would be trying to change english law which doesnt enforce equal inheritance to adopted children or biological children or to anyone for that matter - what do you mean by that?

I have no prejudices, other than I do not wish to see an inherently discriminatory culture be given a framework in which to continue unchallenged.

What is clever as a woman is being against sexism. Islam is sexist and favours men. That is rotten at its core. The superior moral values of the West will prevail so I am a huge optimist but in the mean time we need to fight against sexism wherever it is including in the C of E and in ordinary families too of course where the main battleground remains.

Being against the oppression and discrimination of women is not prejudice defuse.

Talk to Southall Black Sisters and see if they agree with you? That is a feminist organisation in London which is mainly South Asian female staff and clients. They are one of the few organisations not afraid to speak out about the oppression and discrimination of women in Muslim and south asian communities.

There really hasn't been much interest from Defuse or Gosh in discussing the OP though has there Grennie? So I doubt they care what SBS would say.

I'm still hopeful that someone will make a proper defense of the guidelines, but it won't be either of those posters.

If I were the Law Society many of whose members were foolish enough to pick areas of law where there has never been much money to be made and even less today, I would say in defence - this is just one of many initiatives to help members generate more work and that the guidance does not mean they support the sexism is Islam. I don't agree and there is an on line petition against this guidance but that would be their comment.

I just had a look - here is an article on it
"Law Society president Nicholas Fluck has attacked as ‘inaccurate and ill-informed’ press reports that the Society is promoting sharia law.

He was speaking after campaigners for secularism called for the withdrawal of a practice note advising solicitors to draw up wills in compliance with Islamic law.

Fluck said: ‘We live in a diverse multi-faith, multi-cultural society. The Law Society responded to requests from its members for guidance on how to help clients asking for wills that distribute their assets in accordance with sharia practice.

‘Our practice note focuses on how to do that, where it is allowed under English law.’

He said that the Law of England and Wales will give effect to wishes clearly expressed in a valid will in so far as those wishes are compliant with the law of England. ‘The issue is no more complicated than that.’

Charlie Klendjian, secretary of the Lawyers’ Secular Society, called for the note to be withdrawn.

‘By issuing this practice note the Law Society is legitimising and normalising – or at the very least being seen to legitimise and normalise – the distribution of assets in accordance with the discriminatory provisions of sharia law. This is a worrying precedent to set.’

However John Bunker, head of private client knowledge management at commercial and private client firm Thomas Eggar, said: 'As I see it, the Law Society is not advocating sharia law, or encouraging solicitors to act in a discriminatory way, but helping the profession understand how they can make wills that comply with this alternative religious law, if asked by a client to do so. It’s dangerous territory, especially with the different forms of sharia law, but the Law Society is trying to help make sense of the provisions.'

He said that under the principle of testamentary freedom if clients want to leave their estate in accordance with sharia they are free to do so, subject to the potential for any beneficiary to make a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.

Labour MP Barry Sheerman called for a joint investigation by the Commons Justice and Home Affairs Committees into how widespread the use of sharia law is in Britain."

Fideline - What on earth is there to defend? My very first comment on this thread was giving my opinion as to why the guideline was issued.

I think solicitors should be free to serve their customers within the laws of the jurisdiction they serve. No one is forcing solicitors to write sharia compliant wills, as as no one is forcing solicitors to write wills which involve children being disinherited, money being left to causes the solicitor or even society in general doesn't approve of etc, etc.

This is the point where you stamp your feet and "But they should shun sharia law extra especially (while ignoring anything else dodgy anyone else might do with their estate), because I say so", well boo hoo for you, but the law says otherwise.

My main concern, which I stated throughout this thread, has been the erroneous reporting of this issue, with the frankly ludicrous assertion that it somehow changes existing legislation. You might not find newspapers telling lies to be of any concern, but I do, particularly when this is far from the first time that the national press has lied about Muslims.

By the way, mentioning SBS as some kind of trump card is pointless. Are we meant to sit in the naughty corner, or something if we disagree with them? Do their opinions somehow outweigh the Muslim women who have posted here?

What is there to defend? A culture which oppresses discriminates against women, and that's just for starters. The SBS have kicked off the debate amongst Muslim women and are challenging the less desirable aspects of that culture , just as the suffragettes/gists did years ago. It took a while, but they got there in the end. I have no doubt the same thing will happen here.

Woman's Hour has a feature on Islam and feminism
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03z3g9g

Gosh Normally in a debate one defends one's position, constructs lines of argument, critiques the opposing view. I can see you are not familiar.

Inventing fictional opinions and telling other people they hold them ("This is the point where you stamp your feet and "But they should shun sharia law extra especially (while ignoring anything else dodgy anyone else might do with their estate)") Isn't usually a good tactic if one wants to be taken seriously.

Besides, If you refer to my earlier posts, you will see I'm very much in favour of complete freedom for people to write their wills however they choose, be it Sharia-compliant or whatever.

You don't seem very interested in engaging with what is actually being said, though.

Fideline - while you you seem ever so keen to patronise me, I don't see any response to my main point, which is the flawed media coverage. The article cited in the O.P is incorrect, but you don't seem interested in engaging with that.

I don't care if you take me seriously. The self-proclaimed Saviours of Muslim Women found on Mumsnet always get very grumpy when actual Muslim women speak to them and always like to tell us what we can or can't say. You are bringing nothing we haven't heard before.

Sir - You have no idea at all, if you think that SBS have any big impact on Muslim women. If you truly knew the names to drop, you would be talking about Musawah and WISE, but you've probably never heard of them.

I'm sure all of the Muslim groups who are challenging the discrimination and oppression of women within your culture will eventually have a huge impact on how Islam operates, just as the suffragettes/gists did for our society. Times change, things move forward - Islam cannot and won't be allowed to continue to oppress and disriminate. I look forward to that day - I'm sure you do too.

So we are all in agreement. Sexism wherever is it found should be stopped. The Woman's Hour item i linked above could have done with 3x the amount of time given - it was very interesting with a lot of good Muslim women on it talking about women's rights in general (not wills).

Feminists are used to being attacked. Just because the better off ones with an education got women the vote in the UK does not mean they could not obtain rights in law for working class women. You don't have to be in the same class as another to help them. It is the same with all forms of charity. You don't have to be homeless to help the homeless. Non muslim women can help muslim women ensure that awful manipulation by men is changed so that muslim men and women have equal rights.

Those posts lack both coherence and structure. Can you summarise your main points, I don't have the time or the inclination to go through each line.

And how does the appalling acts of colonialism that was meted out across the world many years ago relate to the LS/Sharia law issue now? We're supposing to be moving forward, not backwards - Sharia law does not support that.

And on that note I will bow out of this discussion. I'm supposed to be working now and am too easily distracted by MN

We have veered very badly off the subject of the OP.

When you started banging on with your nonsense about 'white man', CrescentMoon, I switched off!

I just love the selctiveness that you displayed upthread in berating the West for all the so-called ills it had visited on Islam.

Who liberated Kuwait when it was inavded by its Islamic neighbour? Ah would be a coalition that included us nasty non-Islamic nations.

Who brought the Bosnian war to a close and saved the lives of many Muslims living in that country, by bombing Serbia? Ah. that would be a colaition that included us nasty non-Islamic nations.

Who overhrew the Taliban and their particularly gruesome form of Sharia law by backing the equally Islamic but more moderate Northern Alliance? Ah - that would be a coalition led by those really nasty non-Islamic in the whole, NATO allied countries.

Who helped the Islamic country Libya free itself from the dictator Gadaffi? Yep - I think we had a hand in that too.

I'm glad we have been able to save you from some of your fellow Islamacists.
You see, you summed it up when you wrote "islam which is a group orientated religion. where social cohesiveness is as important or more important than the individual."

That's totally at odds with a secular culture that believes in diversity, equality of opportunitiy for every individual, that an individual's rights are important and does not naturally form itself into social groups.

Wet August - Muslim and Islamist are not interchangeable terms. Iraq and Syria both had secular Baathist regimes. For the countries in the MENA region that are not monarchies, Pan Arabism has been far more influential in politics then Islam has, with pre Arab Spring, most regimes espousing Pan Arabist ideology.

Libya was not an Islamic regime. Western intervention in both Libya and Iraq was due less to humanitarian intentions then the fact that both countries have vast amounts of oil.

Afghanistan is a decades long mess that is the result as much of the Cold War and geopolitics as it is religion. The Taliban also still run much of the country, the Western invasion/intervention is almost certainly not an unqualified success. Karzai has little control over the actual country outside of Kabul, with much of Afghanistan being under the control of warlords.

As for Bosnia, intervention there was more to stop the Serbs then to save Muslims. Ditto Kosovo.

What you refer to as "White Man nonsense" is standard post-colonial theory.

Sir - demanding someone summarise their posts for you line by line is astoundingly rude. Do you not think it's ironic that you claim Muslim women are oppressed, yet feel so happy to address a Muslim woman like a servant?

^the Syrians need something like the massacre at Srebrenica to get international action, not the average 100 casualties a day.
^

I can't believe you write that

The Taliban didn't really come into being under Mullah Omar until 1994, two years after the Russians left Afghansatn. If I remember Ahmed Rashid's book correctly, it was formed in response to the violation of children and other people that was taking place by local leaders It did not form in response to the Russian invasion, although many of the mujahadeen of Pashtun ethnicity went on to join the Taliban while the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazari and other ethic groups formed the Northerm Alliance. Many of the foriegn mujahadeen were the Al Queda founders like Bin Laden.

the iraq-iran war the US, UK and Israel sold arms, poison gas and satellite intelligence to both sides hoping to keep the war going for ever

Can't believe you wrote that, much less that you actually believe it.

As I remember the West wanted the conflict to end because exports of oil via the Straits of Hormuz were affected by the amount of shipping that was being sunk in that narrow waterway.

So you're not keen on the Saudis either?

Again, some omissions on your part when talking about North Africa and the wider Middle East.

While you're keen to talk about the suppression in Eygpt and Syria - what about the suppression of democratic rights in Algeria - by an Algerian Govt who are probably all practising Muslims.

What about Syria and Iran's fuelling of the Israeli conflict by supplying Hizbollah?

As the saying goes 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'.

But, again, we have diverged from the OP.