Shariah law fails women

LONDON

Set aside for a moment the violent incidents associated with people claiming to act under the authority of their Islamic faith and consider instead what passes for normalcy.

There are efforts underway in Britain to elevate to the level of mainstream Shariah law, an Islamic legal system predicated on the religious tenets of Islam. “A number of Shariah councils operate in the UK to offer resolution to disputes,” writes The Express, “but they have no jurisdiction in criminal matters.” Not yet, anyway.

“Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams sparked controversy in 2008 when he suggested it was ‘inevitable’ that elements of Shariah would be incorporated in British law,” writes the Express. Would this mean that in the near future Shariah law could run parallel and equal to UK law? Hopefully not. Shariah has an abysmal record when it comes to the treatment of women.

London’s Mayor Boris Johnson called the idea of Shariah law in Britain “absolutely unacceptable.” He is joined in his rejection by Home Secretary Theresa May, who has proposed a review into Shariah courts. The Independent newspaper recently published an investigative story that reveals a parallel system of Islamic justice, which the writer says condemns many British women to “marital captivity,” while at the same time failing to protect them from domestic violence.

Leiden University scholar Machteld Zee, writes The Independent, managed to obtain unusual access to secretive Shariah courts. After attending 15 hours of hearings at the Islamic Shariah Council in Leyton and the Birmingham Central Mosque, Zee reviewed more than a dozen cases.

According to The Independent, some of her findings included:

A case where a woman who claimed to be married to a physically and verbally abusive man is told by a “laughing” judge: “Why did you marry such a person?”

A woman “ready to burst into tears” is sent away without an answer after saying that her husband took out a loan in her name on the day they married and is denying her a divorce until she gives him 10,000 pounds.

A married couple asking for advice on whether the woman had been religiously divorced from her former husband were told “the secular divorce counts as nothing.”

While Ms. Zee found some judges granting divorces and urging people to live under British law, she also concluded that most of the Islamic judges “are not a neutral third party but are always in favor of the man.”

In an editorial responding to Ms. Zee’s research, The Independent says, “Can a healthy, harmonious multicultural society tolerate private legal systems? Not if that means the subjugation of women in abusive and indeed dangerous marriages, a form of imprisonment in all but name sanctioned by their local religious leaders.”

Beyond the threat of mass shootings in the U.S., stabbings on London’s tube and at Israeli bus stops, there is the larger question of Islam’s compatibility with Western values and laws. Will those of us who practice a different faith, including Muslims with a different view of Islam, or those who practice no faith at all, eventually be required to bow to Shariah law, if the Muslim population grows to a majority? That’s what radical Islamists appear to want. Domination. If you doubt it, check your history books and read about the Crusades of 630 A.D.

Tribune Content Agency LLC.