Friday, February 15, 2008

Shari'a in the UK

From HERE:

[...] Witness the archbishop's insistence that he wasn't advocating the "inhumanity" of Sharia à la Saudi Arabia or Iran where adulterers are stoned and thieves have hands amputated. No, no, he told us. He was just referring to the use of Sharia to resolve marital disputes, he insisted.

But that is precisely where the "inhumanity" of Sharia lies for women. As a Muslim woman -- born in Egypt, raised in Saudi Arabia -- I can only laugh at the archbishop's naiveté. In Egypt, as in many Muslim countries, the legal system has been completely modernized with the exception of one area that stubbornly remains caught in the web of edicts issued by Muslim scholars who lived centuries ago -- family law.

Sharia is used only to govern the lives of women and children.

Sudanese-American law professor Abdullahi An-Nai'm long ago pointed out the lie at the heart of calls for Sharia: They are essentially an attempt to "protect a patriarchal system."

There are already some Sharia councils operating in Britain for Muslims who agree to abide by their rulings, but these are unofficial bodies not recognized by British law. It's not difficult to imagine women being pressured to "agree to abide" by such rulings. And it's just as easy to understand why a man would choose them over the secular legal system which would not be as tilted in his favor.

Why on earth are these religious cop-outs allowed to exist in the UK?
[...]

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