Even Infidels Are Turning to Sharia Law
THE SUNDAY TIMES: As more and more non-Muslim Britons seek Islamic justice, Edna Fernandes asks how it will change our society

Dressed in immaculate white kurta pyjamas and with fingers interlaced, Sheikh Faiz Siddiqui leant back in his white leather chair as he listened.

Before him were two warring businessmen: a Muslim of Asian origins and his white non-Muslim partner, who had come to seek judgment on a dispute. This proved to be a run-of-the-mill squabble over whether the non-Muslim had been cheated out of the profits of their jointly owned car-fleet company by the Muslim.

What made the case out of the ordinary is that it was the the non-Muslim who had chosen to take his grievance to a religious tribunal run by imams according to the laws of sharia — an ancient Islamic code of conduct that dates back to the time of the prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.

As the story of the business unfolded, the sheikh — one of two judges presiding that day — began to suspect the Muslim businessman was not being entirely honest in his evidence. So what happened next, I asked, when I met Siddiqui at his opulent offices in Warwickshire.

“I reminded him of his vows to God,” he said. “I told him, ‘You can lie and you can cheat this other man. But realise this: one day, you will face the Day of Judgment and on that day you will face Allah himself and be punished’.”

The sheikh’s words apparently had a profound effect. The Muslim businessman promptly changed his story, admitting he had cheated, and his non-Muslim partner was awarded £48,000 in compensation by the two Muslim judges.

“Sharia,” the 41-year-old sheikh explained to me, “is the law of Allah. So, yes, I invoke God in a legal setting. It creates a moral compulsion to tell the truth.”

This case was just one of several hundred that have been ruled on by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (Mat) since it was set up two years ago to operate as a civil sharia court. Since its formation, 5% of the cases have involved a non-Muslim.

Siddiqui is a Pakistani-born barrister and the founder and chairman of Mat’s governing council. He organises the funding of the service and costs are recouped through charges to those who use it — ranging from £150 to £2,500, depending on the nature of the case and its duration. Each hearing has two judges: one a mufti who is a learned imam with training in Islamic law; the other a Muslim lawyer or judge trained in UK law. None of the 67 judges is paid a fee. And, according to the sheikh, none of the money needed to run the tribunals comes from abroad.

His judges are not the only ones dispensing justice in British sharia courts: a recent report by Civitas, the think tank, estimated that there are about 85 sharia tribunals — including many that deal with divorce — operating in the UK. Some of these are less formal affairs in which individual imams make rulings in their mosques.

All of them are increasingly busy as more and more people bypass the traditional courts to seek religious rulings that are just as binding under British law. >>> Edna Fernandes* | Sunday, July 26, 2009

*Edna Fernandes is the author of Holy Warriors, published by Portobello Books. www.ednafernandes.com

Letter to The Times: Sharia Contradicts Islam’s Sacred Text
TIMES ONLINE: We must combat the crusade to legitimise Sharia law within the UK

Sir, Most thinking British Muslims vehemently reject this new “shariafication” fad in Britain (“Hardline Islamic penal sanctions”, letters, July 22). The claim that many non-Muslims are seeking redress in Sharia courts needs to be verified by an independent audit, not by some self-serving Muslim organisation that is itself a principal instigator of this unfortunate trend in British Islam (reports, July 21).

This co-ordinated campaign by pro-Saudi traditionalists to enforce medieval Muslim jurisprudence by stealth and by increments has to be resisted. The pretext of promoting a benign and benevolent juristic code is far from the truth. In reality, this corrosive Wahhabi and Salafi drive to (initially) implement selective aspects of an anachronistic legal system is nothing but the thin edge of the wedge, a Trojan horse for the later adoption and/or grafting of Islamic law on to British jurisprudence.

The Sharia as practised in the Muslim world today is notoriously inconsistent and anachronistic. Nowhere is there any uniformity about these medieval juristic rulings. But most damning is that Sharia often flagrantly violates the transcendent Koran, particularly when it relates to women’s rights, criminal punishments, interfaith relations, violence, ideological tolerance and religious freedom. Even under the guise of establishing personal and family law for Muslims in the UK, the British-based Sharia propagandists cannot explain away the inherent inequity that Muslim women face under these archaic masculine-promulgated edicts in terms of marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance rights and female attire. While the Koran encourages a gender equal society, the Saudi and Pakistani-influenced mullahs in this country unashamedly defend the tribal sexism of 7th-century Arabia.

Under this antiquated legal system, men have untrammelled rights to instant divorce and are entitled to the virtual automatic custody of their offspring, but there are no similar prerogatives for women. This is just one of innumerable cases where the exclusively male-written Sharia not only blatantly contradicts Islam’s sacred text but also is opposed to the concepts of natural justice that are so intrinsic to British law.

On these grounds alone, every effort must be made, by Muslims as well as other right-minded people, to combat this current crusade to legitimise this outmoded and anti-Koranic cultural-legal system within the UK. Since British Muslims are fully protected under UK law and free to practise the fundamentals of their faith, there is no valid reason why they should support this noxious “shariafication” of the UK.

Dr T. Hargey

Chairman, Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford [Source: Times Online] | Friday, July 24, 2009