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The Changing of the Guard

The Subtle Spread of Islamic law in Great Britain and the West

by Mark DeYoung

Great Britain is officially in over its head. According to a recent study by a major think tank (Civitas), the country has more than 85 sharia courts in operation. While a much smaller number of such courts have been in operation for more than two decades, they gained true prominence in recent years with the establishment of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals. These tribunals can officially judge in civil matters as long as they do not contravene British law.

Denis MacEoin, author of the Civitas study, believes they do just that.

“Among the rulings,” he said, “we find some [sharia courts] that advise illegal actions and others that transgress human rights standards as applied by British courts.”

The study cites rulings that declare that no Muslim woman can marry a non-Muslim man (unless he converts to Islam), and if a Muslim woman does marry outside the faith, any children can be taken from her. Further rulings approved polygamous marriages and enforced a woman’s duty to have sex with her husband on demand.

Muslim leaders counter that sharia courts are no different than Jewish beth din courts or Christian bishops and elders who rule on marriage and family issues, claiming they are not trying to operate outside of British law. Neil Addison, a British barrister, disputes that claim.

“These courts are not operating within the same disciplines as the beth din,” said Addison. “The beth din acknowledge that ‘the law of the land is the law,’ and a rabbi cannot perform a synagogue marriage ceremony unless a registrar is present to simultaneously register the marriage under English law. Imams and mosques are performing marriage ceremonies that are not registered under English law.”

As a direct result, about two-thirds of Muslim marriages are not registered. Consequently, women in such marriages have no choice but to go to sharia tribunals.

A more disturbing result of affording marriage arbitration to sharia courts is forced marriage. 2008 (the year after the establishment of the Muslim tribunals) saw an 80 percent increase in forced marriages. A government unit reported 8,000 forced marriages that year, including girls as young as 13.

While the British sharia tribunals only have authority over civil matters for now, they are part of a sinister legal system that seeks to replace man-made law with “God-given” law.
In countries where sharia is the law of the land, the rights of men always take precedent over women and children, and Muslims are privileged over non-Muslims. Cruel punishments are the norm in sharia. Death by stoning is a favorite for women who commit adultery (or are wrongfully accused of adultery), thieves have their hands cut off, domestic violence against women is legal and public hanging is a regular conclusion to a whole host of crimes.

Glimpses of the nature of full sharia law have already showed themselves in Britain’s Muslim tribunals. There have been six well-known domestic abuse cases that the Muslim courts handled in tandem with British police. In those cases, the sharia judges ruled that the husbands (who committed the violence) were subject to anger management classes and regular counseling from community elders, with no further punishment from the British legal system.

In a recent inheritance dispute, the estate of a Midlands man was to be divided between two sons and three daughters. A sharia council ruled that the sons should receive twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with Muslim law, but in direct violation of British regulations.

“The introduction of sharia law into this country is a recipe for a dichotomous legal system that holds Muslims and non-Muslims to different standards,” pointed out Mr. McEoin of the Civitas study.

And that’s just the beginning. While Muslim elders claim they do not want to operate outside of British or European law, Muslims believe that sharia expresses the highest and best goals for all societies, as it is the will of Allah. Mr. Anjem Choudary, a judge in the Sharia Court of the UK and Principal Lecturer at the London School of Sharia, minces no words when he speaks of his goals. He and his followers want to establish a separate Islamic state inside of Britain that operates under full sharia law.

Elsewhere in Europe, discussions concerning the implementation of sharia councils are well under way, and radical Muslim communities constantly lobby and agitate for its acceptance. The incorporation of sharia concepts into Europe is mostly happening in subtle ways. For example, the Netherlands and Belgium now legally recognize polygamous marriages.

Sharia law is also on the docket in the United States. In Texas, appeals courts have referred divorce cases to a local council called the Texas Islamic Court. As a preemptive measure, legislatures in both Louisiana and Oklahoma are considering a ban on reference to sharia law in cases held before state courts.

Back in Britian, while the Anglican archbishop Rowan Williams stated that the adoption of some sharia law “seems unavoidable,” Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor made a stronger response to the spread of sharia.

“There are aspects of sharia that are practiced that we certainly wouldn’t want in this country. The laws of this country don’t allow forced marriages or polygamy,” he said, adding that governments had “a right to make sure that those laws are kept.”

The world community watches in horror as Iran (a country that operates under full sharia law) decides if it will carry out the stoning sentence of a mother of two children.

Is this what is in store for the people of the West if we don’t stop the slow implementation of parallel sharia courts in our legal system?

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)