Archbishop says Sharia law in this country is unavoidable

[spokette]

Really?

Well if it does happen (heaven help us if it does), guess who will lose out because it certainly won't be the men.

There are over 50 muslim countries in the world so if someone wants to observe sharia law, I'm sure one of them will accommodate their lifestyle choice.

My parents came from Jamaica in the 1960s and even though they retained their culture, they observed British law.

My personal opinion is that Sharia law is incompatible in a country where laws are in place to protect and uphold the rights of women because it is usually women who receive a raw deal.

There was a documentary shown a few years ago which followed a female lawyer in an African country (cannot remember which one - might have been Nigeria) who adjudicated over cases where women seeked redress in civil courts whilst their husbands went to the Sharia courts. It made me thankful to live in this country.

Also remember the case of the Muslim woman in Nigeria who was sentenced to death for having an affair with a married man which resulted in a child? He was given a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

you said "it's unlikely that he would have slept with Ayesha at the age of 9, unless of course she'd reached puberty by then (also unlikely)."

and i said

"And then when she [his first wife aged 65] dies, he gets engaged to a six year old. who menstruates at 9.(he's 56 by then). So then he has sex with her."

So why would you ask if Hadith is telling me that it was before she menstruated?

According to Hadith, she was NINE. ALTHOUGH STARTED MENSTRUATING.

and my point is that I wouldn't have...if I'd been having extra information from on high.

Sorry I can't understand what point you're making. I'm obviously being thick this morning.

So she menstruated at 9. (It seems a very intimate thing to have passed into history, but hey ho.) So he wasn't sleeping with her as a child (as defined by that society).

So where are we disagreeing?

The whole thought of this really freaks me out and is bringing out a bit of a right wing element in my thoughts that I honestly didn't think existed and for which I am completely unapologetic which is unlike me.I would say it is impossible to have 2 law systems running alongside each other successfully and I am against it in every way shape and form

Am I missing something? Williams is basically talking about situations in which Muslims, voluntarily, sort out matters about the division of property after death or divorce between themselves, rather than turning to the national courts. This happens all the time, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. If either party in the matter objects or does not comply with the sharia ruling, the national legal system kicks in.

I do accept that there is a problem with Muslim women in very traditional relationships/communities, but I think that this issue is a bit of a red herring. We need to find some way of reaching out to those women and give them access to the support and information that they need.

Noddy - do not panic! Your inner-tory can remain dormant for now - RW is being widely misreported and misunderstood - read the article and parts of the thread.

And for the avoidance of doubt - neither Rowan Williams nor any identified muslim, is calling, as far as we know, for legalisation of sex with 9 year-olds.

Um...if you take the bible literally too don't you end up with some men who lived for something like 300 years etc...not sure those who wrote it down were the best at getting dates etc right...so why would you take islamic writings literally as well?
(I know some muslims do...just like some christians do etc etc...but...I thought we were trying to be reasonable?)

I tend towards the one law for everybody opinion. Don't agree with some laws applying to some people. Am dubious about many aspects of sharia law. Am dubious about many aspects of any religiously based law. One set of laws, which apply equally to everyone seems fair to me.

Noted RW saying the law of the land in UK was CofE...um...no...

Does anyone on here think it would be reasonable to go to a muslim country and petition to have a different set of laws for the Christians and the Jews and any other religeon?

I think this statement made by Williams is outrageous and irresponsible. And, sadly, I am rather unimpressed by my church's leader.

Sharia Law is not inevitable. It is not even welcome by the vast majority. If ever it is welcome in the UK by the vast majority, it will be time for me to pack my things and go home.

Someone on R4 last noght pointed out that you should probably substitute all referencecs to islam/muslim/sharia etc an dreplace with 'religious/religion' and that is probably what RW is getting at.

Am wondering what his motives are, as really can't quite work out what he hoped to achieve by this, apart from setting off the crazy comments about islam taking over "our" lives etc.

I'm with policywonk on this one: people can do what they like unless they do it to other people who do not share their particular beliefs and don't want the whatever it is done to them.
Now al religion is bullshit, but if people want to imagine an omnipotent invisible friend and, by having this imaginary friend they feel better about themselves and more inclined to behave in a pro-social way (helpfulness, fair dealing etc) then there's nothing wrong with that whichever myth systemt they choose to hook up with. If people reckon that their imagainary friend has told them it's OK to kill others who don't subscribe to the same myth system, or that they have more rights than other people, then they can get stuffed.
I get very irritated by a lot of the Muslim-bashing that goes on, mainly because there are Christian bucketheads who hate women, gay men and people of different races and religions just as much, so a nutter is a nutter is a nutter as far as I am concerned - and a decnet human being is a decent human being whether they believe in one deity, a dozen deities or none at all.

infibulation is well emtrenched within Islamic culture. I am not ranting - just trying a spot of consciousness raising. Another tradtional cultural practice within feminism.

FFS, madamez, that was so offensive to so many people on so many levels that if I didn't recognise your name I'd think you were a bloody troll.

This thread is (I thought) about Sharia law in the UK, and not about Islam vs. Christianity. Now, since the UK is officially a Christian country and sharia is specific to Islam some discussion of religeon is obviously relevant. But, we seem to have lost site of culture and legal systems in all of the religeon bashing.

"and monkeytrousers...you did it again...that is the third insult in one night....why is it that any issue/opinion anyone else is passionate about is laughable to you and yours is so superior...why should we give credit to your jargon about darwin when my support of my religion and its origins is seen as insignificant to you? why do you think i have stockholm syndrome?just because i am willing to support something that is an exception to the rule?"

What insults? What laughable issues?

Your support of your religion is vertainly not insignoficant to me. I have said on this thread, i respect your right to defend your culture - but I have a right to challenge it. The right to debate and freedom of speech are a central tenets of liberal democracy. I am justr exercising those rights, bot denegrading Islamism for the sake of it out of some latent predudice.

I actulvy supported Islam just after 7/7 by starting a petition asking the press to be more even handed with these issues. ver the past tow years of reading about it my eyes have been opened to the dangers Islamism poses to liberal democracy - not peoples right to practive their religion - but a political movement.

No, I don't think you have stockholm syndrome, unless you are a battered wife who defends your battering partner, I dunno. I know nothing abut you only what you say on here which I am pretty sure is not the totality of who you are - as with all of us.

People seem to be offended by the mear fact that these discussions are happening. I've no idea why? Maybe you could tell me?

Disagree that Madamez' post was offensive. She may have made some -ahem- flippant remarks about religion, but her concluding remark "a decent human being is a decent human being whether they believe in one deity, a dozen deities or none at all" is very pertinent in this context and needs saying imo

Monkeytrousers - I agree it's important to have these discussions, but I do think we need be really careful not to conflate Islam with Islamism

And finally, just to refresh our memories, you can listen here to what the Archbishop actually said

I didn't see anything wrong with madamez's post at all. Just about summed it up for me -particularly the last point.
''I get very irritated by a lot of the Muslim-bashing that goes on, mainly because there are Christian bucketheads who hate women, gay men and people of different races and religions just as much, so a nutter is a nutter is a nutter as far as I am concerned - and a decnet human being is a decent human being whether they believe in one deity, a dozen deities or none at all. ''

I agree totally Iorek, I have spent a long time on MN making that distinction. Not much on this thread particulalry, as I kind of hope people already know that now, but maybe it should always be stated, your right.

monkey - There is no Islamic "culture" that has female circumcision in it. There is African culture that unfortunately has female circumcision across many nations.

Female circumcision has NOTHING to do with Islam. Some of its practitioners are Muslim. Some of its practitioners are Christian. ALL are AFRICAN.

It was practiced in Africa before Islam.

Read this slowly so it sinks:

1. There is no female circumcision in the Quran.
2. There is no female circumcision in the Hadith.
3. No female in Mohammad's family has ever been circumcised.
4. There are fatwas saying it is un-Islamic. There is no fatwa saying it is Islamic.

So... (drum roll...)

There Is No Female Circumcision In Islam.

People should be free to practice whichever religion they wish and to have a say in policy and law, but no more than any other special interest lobby group. Policywonk makes a good point in rhat Williams was simply saying that Sharia law is practised on an informal day-to-day basis, realistically speaking there is nothing we can do to prevent it and either party can appeal to national law if they don't like it. This happens in another parts of society as well, e.g. a verbal contract with your builder.

That, however, is not the point. Sharia law is considered to be superior to national law. The parties concerned recognise it as such. Appeals are therefore very unlikely to happen. Sharia law would be binding on a practical basis. What do you suppose would happen a woman who disputed the Sharia imposed divorce settlement before a British court?

What would happen therefore is that there would ultimately two legal systems existing side by side and then the country's entire judicial system becomes unworkable.

My real concern here is nothing to do with Islam but the influence of religion at all. Since the Enlightment, Western society has recognised there to be a need for a division between religion and the state, be it the government or the judiciary. Whilst of course the law is influenced by broader society the law is and absolutely should be fundamentally secular. This deeply disturbs me, be it the impact of Sharia law in the UK or the Christian far right in the US.

Cross post with you 'Iorek' - and very well said 'Cestlavie'.

MT -some of the cultures which practice genital mutilation are now Islamic - but did not start the practice as a result of Islam. Look at the many Islamic countries / communities - including saudia Arabia, pakistan etc, where it is NOT practised!

In fact islamic scholars and clerics have spoken out against it: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6176340.stm

So why are there Muslim's defending it as their right as an Islamic tradition, Cote?

I know it is not in the Quran. I know it occurs in other cultures. But this still doesn't change the fact that many Muslim's practice it becauser they believe it is an Islamic tradition.

It's much more complex than this. It's about controlling women and it is practiced to protect the family honour (in the hands of the females) - which most certainlty is Islamic tradition.

Mostly uneducated women enfrorce it actually, mothers, grandmothers who had it done to them. So it goes..

Yes, but the 'protecting women's honour' ethos is common in Arabic society (as a separate - as well as thoroughly inter-twangled - tradition from Islamic - in fact it is a feature of feudal and subsistence societies because of the importance of land in marriage etc etc.

Of course it is practised more by uneducated people - and thier lack of education or acccess to independent information is key to thier misunderstanding of the history of the practice.

But I think it is important to be precise about these things because alongside identifying systems of opressiona nd discrimination - and having no truck with them - it is also important not to stir up fear, misunderstanding and panic in a way which increases tension between peoples and adds to the dmonisation of muslim people as a whole. That is why I am so damn irritated with Rowan Williams. As far as I can see he didn't actually mean that Sharuia law should ever take precedence over British law in cases where any law exists, which to anyone with half an ounce of commonm sense would be totally unworkable - and has been condemned as thoroughly undesirable by all the muslim MPs, and many other muslim spokespeople.

But that isn't being heard.

So, you guys don't think that on a thread that has turned into a debate between two religeons that this is a tad insulting:

"Now al religion is bullshit, but if people want to imagine an omnipotent invisible friend and, by having this imaginary friend they feel better about themselves and more inclined to behave in a pro-social way (helpfulness, fair dealing etc) "

I think it's fucking rude.

Its free-speech - something which many religious extremists would prefer not to allow.

monkey - To my personal knowledge, YOU are the only one who believes female genital mutilation to be part of Islam.

You are not Muslim, and your knowledge on the subject of Islam is questionable.

Maybe some neighbour from Africa told you it was part of Islam. She was wrong. Whoever you heard it from was wrong.

Just get it through your head, please.