Sharia in the UK, beginning of the end?

[ShimonG]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4749183.ece

Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.

Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.”

The disclosure that Muslim courts have legal powers in Britain comes seven months after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pilloried for suggesting that the establishment of sharia in the future “seems unavoidable” in Britain.

In July, the head of the judiciary, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, further stoked controversy when he said that sharia could be used to settle marital and financial disputes.

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.

The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.”

[ShimonG]

I'd request all posters to not respond to the diatribes of moderate moslems. Apparently, he has found a way to close threads that get too close to the truth by initiating abuses, inviting retaliation from us, and then getting his friends to close threads.

Instead, create a stink that even his friends cannot ignore when he hurls abuses by directly reporting the abuses to the mods and posting a reply on this thread so that we can keep count, which is open and not sub rosa as preferred by moderate moslems and their friends. TIA.

[ShimonG]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022743.php

...............What this means in practice was evident from a recent inheritance dispute in the Midlands, when the Nuneaton shari’a court divided the estate of a Muslim father between three daughters and two sons. The “judges” gave the sons twice as much as the daughters—perfectly in accordance with sharia, of course, but contrary to any regular British court, which would have given the daughters equal shares. In six cases of domestic violence quoted by Siddiqi, the “judges” ordered the husbands to take “anger management” classes and “mentoring from community elders” (such as imams and shari’a judges). In each case, the battered women subsequently withdrew the complaints and the police stopped their investigations. It should be noted that under normal British law those six cases could have been prosecuted as criminal, rather than “family” cases....

[Mediocrates]

You do know that the Druze have their own religious courts in Israel, right? Because they do.

[ShimonG]

How many suicide attacks have the Druze launched against the civilized world?

It is the height of folly to assume that allowing jewish or buddhist or any other civil law will have the same benign effects as islamic law.

[Mediocrates]

How many? Probably none in Israel. They're certainly big on honor killings though. It's quite an issue.

[bararallu]

Just one... from lebanon. And we released him after he murdered a whole family.

[ShimonG]

Great. So we agree that the impact of the Druze managing their affairs in their own courts is limited in scope.

Now, what idiot wants to claim that the scope of islamic sharia courts, given islam's rapine and murderous tenets, will remain LIMITED in scope?

[savvy]

Mediocrates, Sharia is not just religious law. It's law that's legally binding over an entire nation or the law of the land. It permits no other system of law or rule and rules over Muslims and non-Muslims alike. A non-Muslim who steals can be punished according to how theft should be punished under Sharia.

[andak01]

Mediocrates, Sharia is not just religious law. It's law that's legally binding over an entire nation or the law of the land. It permits no other system of law or rule and rules over Muslims and non-Muslims alike. A non-Muslim who steals can be punished according to how theft should be punished under Sharia.

Uh huh. And you have an example of that happening in the UK? Or are you just blowing smoke? Has a non-Muslim been sentenced under Sharia law for anything in the UK? Has a thief lost a hand in the UK after being sentenced by Sharia law? I thought so.

[Kenneth]

It would appear the these courts have ruled on matters of a criminal nature. There would be more public debate on this if the U.K. economy wasn't is a crisis.

[savvy]

Uh huh. And you have an example of that happening in the UK? Or are you just blowing smoke? Has a non-Muslim been sentenced under Sharia law for anything in the UK? Has a thief lost a hand in the UK after being sentenced by Sharia law? I thought so.

Not yet, but the possiblities are endless... I thought you were a moderate Muslim that agreed several times that Sharia was a brutal theocracy and should therefore not be implemented in the West. Thanks for letting your true colours out.

[scattergood]

Uh huh. And you have an example of that happening in the UK? Or are you just blowing smoke? Has a non-Muslim been sentenced under Sharia law for anything in the UK? Has a thief lost a hand in the UK after being sentenced by Sharia law? I thought so.

Typical andak. A problem hasn't happened, so don't worry about it and stop complaining. But once it has happed it is too late.

It is like being in a car hurtling towards a cliff. You say, hey maybe we should slow down or change directions, we are going to head off a cliff. Andak's response above would be akin to saying 'shut up, we haven't gone off no stinkin' cliff'. It would be funny if it weren't so transparently contradictory and falls in line with Islamist / soft jihad thinking.

[savvy]

Welcome back Scattergood.

[andak01]

It is like being in a car hurtling towards a cliff. You say, hey maybe we should slow down or change directions, we are going to head off a cliff. Andak's response above would be akin to saying 'shut up, we haven't gone off no stinkin' cliff'. It would be funny if it weren't so transparently contradictory and falls in line with Islamist / soft jihad thinking.

So then, the answer is no. Non-Muslims aren't subjected to any rulings of any Sharia court in the UK. And no cases of theft in the have ended in the loss of a hand. Thank you. Why should we distinguish between things that haven't happened and never will and things that have and do? In the interest of accuracy. The existance of a cliff doesn't necessitate a crash. We can acknowledge the existance of the cliff without getting hysterical. If there is a Shariah tribunal that is breaking the laws of England, they should be shut down. But family law, weddings, funerals, wills is practiced by other religions and has been for generations. I personally know a man who specializes in Catholic anullments. The laws of England of course should always supercede what happens at those councils and no criminal cases whatsoever should be tried there.

Tell me though, what do you propose? Shariah be stricken from all languages? Everyone breathing the word gets arrested?