Rowan and Sharia

Under most interpretations, Islamic law gives men more rights than women in matters of inheritance, divorce and child custody. Bad idea.

Jim

Not me. Live here, live by our law. Take it or leave it. If you don't like it head back to the wonderfully liberal states of the Middle East.

And George you know full well you've stirred up a hornet's nest here!

I think it is a backward step.

Does Rowan belong to.............................

Thought Steve Bell's cartoon was fairly spot on..............................................

Lets have equality for all under British Law.

Except for those of a religious persuasion who disagree with the law of the land that they live in.

So less than 2% of UK population will be allowed exemption from certain laws and will be allowed to impose religious law.

Boy this would be fun in the courts.

But your Honour within my faith the de flowering of 6 year old virgins is required on the 1st day of Fokkerarrder the bloodied one.

The whole point of having the rule of law is to provide equality for all under that law and to ensure nobody is persecuted due to religious belief/bigotry.

If you wish to live under Sharia Law then go live in a Country where Sharia Law is the LAW.
Oh yeah I forgot you left that country to come here.

WHY WAS THAT?????

regards David

Spot on David. We have enough "others" asking for special schools doctors etc,without locals asking for it on their behalf. Being the open people we are/have been we have tried to help.
Ask your self what would happen in some of these countries if you ask the state to build an English school or christian church, or allow you to be tried under UK law?.

None of which is what +Cantuar actually said.

We do need to separate what he actually said from the tabloid's knee-jerk gloss on the same.

He was not talking about any kind of alternative jurisdiction being put in place in the UK.

Speaking to legal academics, in the opening lecture on a series on Islam in English Law, Dr Williams was talking about the ability of the law of the land to accommodate religious perspectives, as it had already done with the Jewish Halacha:

“… certain provision of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law; so it’s not as if we’re bringing in an alien and rival system; we already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justified conscientious objections in certain circumstances in providing certain kinds of social relations.”

Whilst speaking in the main about principles of Sharia law, the point applied generally to other religious principles:

“We have orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country legally and in a regulated way because there are modes of dispute resolution and customary provisions which apply there in the light of Talmud. It’s not a new problem, not to mention the questions … about how the consciences of Catholics, Anglicans and others who have difficulty over issues like abortion are accommodated within the Law; so the whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways in which the law of the land pays respect to custom and community; that’s already there.”

That, he said, did not mean that he was advocating the wholesale adoption of Sharia and certainly not the kinds of practical expressions of it seen in some parts of the world:

“… nobody in their right mind, I think, would want to see in this country a kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states [with] the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well.”

Safeguards he said, were vital and UK law was in a strong position to provide these:

“…I think it would be quite wrong to say that we could ever licence so to speak a system of law for some communities which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.”

UK law needed to engage properly with the religious concerns and motivations of members of the communities which made up society he said:

“What we don’t want I think is either a stand-off where the law squares up to religious consciences over something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the commons as it were a secular discourse saying ‘we have no room for conscientious objections’; we don’t want that, we don’t either I think want a situation where because there’s no way of legally monitoring what communities do, making them part of public process, people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes a way of intensifying oppression within a community and that happens; that happens.”

Do I believe there should be an accomodation of modest aspects of Sharia? I'm not sure I do. Unlike the other religious accomodations, which are fully compatible with the Law of the Land, under Sharia men and women are not treated equally.

Dr Williams was tremendously naive in thinking that he would be given a fair hearing outside the specialist audience of his lecture.

James

JWM,

Congratulations. A calm, considered, rational post.

Not really the sort of thing that's encouraged here but well done anyway

Yeah, JWM, thanks for shedding a little light on the debate, rather than yet another knee-jerk reaction. I suspect that this may not be a good idea, but it surely deserves a little intelligent discussion, instead of this tabloid-fuelled moral panic. Interesting point about orthodox Jewish courts too.

Even the serious new on Radio Four seemed to present this without contextualising it clearly. The Six O'Clock News on Friday the 8th of February came close, but what it seems to me is that in many ways Muslim, Jewish and other minority Religious Law is already accomodated, which seems reasonable to me.

What cannot be satisfactory would be the application of the the aspects of the Sharia penal code as it is implemented in some Muslim country in volving Corporal punishment and so forth.

Thanks James for putting the situation in a way that even the BBC really did not.

George

The point surely is that no religious law should be tolerated in a secular liberal society. I suspect he harbours a return to the days when the church had far more power and influence than it does today and putting the question via Islam is obfuscation.

Time to set the C of E free from the UK state - why should Canterbury be so associated with the state such that the PM has to approve the appointment.

The C Of E should be given the same status as any other cult or club or religion - ie only allowed to exist as long as it does not interfere with the running of the country.

IME the most tolerant, peaceful & loving religion is Sufism, the mystic branch of Islam.

We are human, so we all have far more in common than not. It's easy to forget the UK is an immigrant nation - however far back in history (& prehistory) you look wave after wave of people have come from outside & populated the British Isles.

I see the challenge for the human race is our nature; we respond differently to people who we perceive to be different to us. The basis doesn't matter - race, religious beliefs, nationality, sex, age, etc. I try to be aware of this & strive not to react negatively to people who in my mind are "different" to me.

All Brit' nationals should be treated equally in law.
The logical way is to end the current C of E relationship, & have no religious laws.

We have to learn to live together.

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:

The Archbishop has been at best, incompetent and at worst divisive. I’m not sure which. Either way, I think he needs to consider his position.

I appreciate James taking the time and effort to explain what the Archbishop actually said. But James shouldn’t have been put in the position of needing to do so.

Possibly, if the Archbishop makes a swift, brief statement as to what his message really was, he might capture the imagination of the country and suppress the alarm of his flock. The attention span of the average British voter is 30 seconds, so he needs to understand what is meant by “precise”.

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
.....All Brit' nationals should be treated equally in law.
The logical way is to end the current C of E relationship, & have no religious laws.

We have to learn to live together.

I'll second that!!

And I'll third it, or whatever the saying is.

Moreover, it is high time to end the drift to so-called "faith" schools. Education should be firmly based on knowledge and reason, and the state should play no part in indoctrinating children with irrational beliefs. Those who want such "education" for their offspring should make their own provision for it.

I feel ashamed that the town where I grew up, Gateshead, now has one of the country's most notorious faith schools, where creationism and other myths are taught as science.

YES - true to form - we are sliding off topic. But just for the record, Emmanuel College Gateshead is NOT a church school.

It is important to understand the process by which new schools are established, especially when it is to succeed/replace a failing school.

Essentially, the local authority advertises for potential promoters to submit bids (saving the exchequer 10% or £1.6M of the £16M set up costs, and all future liabilities). The potential promoters have to be able to demonstrate that they are in it for the long haul, therefore.

The local authority considered that the bid submitted by Sir Peter Vardy and his private consortium was preferable to all the other bids (if there were any). But please may I stress that this a school promoted by a private consortium, and not any official faith group body.

Regarding the Church of England's view of the private consortium and Emmanuel College, you might find this article from the Guardian to be of interest - partnership between the Church and St Dawkins.

The position of the Church of England is for the teaching of science in accordance with the Agreed Local Syllabus for each Local Authority. They are exactly the same. It is at best mistaken and at worse mischievous to suggest otherwise.

James

quote:

Emmanuel College Gateshead is NOT a church school.

I never said that it was a church school, but the extremist god-squad controls it and it receives lots of government cash. IMHO, the taxpayer ought not to have to fund such nonsense, nor should it form any part of the syllabus.

And now I promise not to deviate from the topic again!

"*"

quote:

Originally posted by Dai Compi:

Education should be firmly based on knowledge and reason, and the state should play no part in indoctrinating children with irrational beliefs.

So True Dai!

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
YES - true to form - we are sliding off topic ...

The position of the Church of England is for the teaching of science in accordance with the Agreed Local Syllabus for each Local Authority. They are exactly the same. It is at best mistaken and at worse mischievous to suggest otherwise.

James

As the Rowan/Sharia debate is fundamentally
about the relationship between Individual, Organised Religions & State I think Dai is well on topic - even if Dai doesn't!

All faith schools teach to Syllabus, but the presentation is very different IME (Mrs. 555 is a teacher). In a faith school it usual to have other religions presented as "this is what other people believe in", & then in Assembly we pray to (the real) God. This isn't surprising considering all organised religions (to a greater or lesser extent) are in the business of reinforcing the faith of believers, & converting/indoctrinating non-believers.

Faith schools have no place in state education IMHO.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
Faith schools have no place in state education IMHO.

Interestingly, the NUT (not known for their backwardness in coming forward) voted otherwise.

NUT by name!

They have a vested interest in preserving the status quo

Thank you JWM for an excellent and illuminating post. Maybe Rowan is politically naive - he is not by common standards a "worldly" man, he has never learnt to drive, for example, but there is no doubt that he has one of the most amazing intellects in Britain.

Few quick points.

1) 90% of the Sharia is already present in English common law. A fact that is not widely acknowledged, but the English legal tradition borrows a lot from the same eastern philosophy that forms the founding principles of the Sharia and when you start to examine it the similarities are remarkable.

2) Most of the Sharia is not concerned with what we would term criminal law. The bulk of it is what we would term civil law. Sharia banking is already recognized in Britain as are contracts made under Sharia law.

3) Interpretation of the Sharia is largely cultural and varies greatly across the Islamic world. The likes of Tariq Ramadan have long argued for the need to develop a Western-Islamic tradition that allows for an Islamic culture that does not bring Muslims living in the west into conflict with their non-Muslim neighbours. Sadly such a thing does not exist, and Tariq Ramadan spends a lot of his life under armed guard as Islamic absolutists (often inaccurately called fundamentalists) have made several attempts on his life.

4) Rowen Williams is (in practice) the head of the Church of England, one of the state religions of the United Kingdom.


I agree utterly that Rowen Williams had no business making the comments that he did. I am aware that the tabloids, and even the usually very even-handed BBC took his comments out of context. Indeed I would not have batted an eyelid if I had attended a lecture at a University where such comments were made, from an academic standpoint he was making a perfectly legitimate argument. Nevertheless, he is the leader of a state religion with a defined constitutional role, and as such should remain within the confines of that role. It is certainly not his place to make suggestions on matters of policy, especially ones which are at odds with the will of the vast majority of the electorate, and which profoundly embarrass Her Majesty's Government.

I think there probably are many aspects of the Sharia that we could accommodate within British law without sacrificing liberal principles. Not least we should recognize marriages under the Sharia and for that matter marriages under Catholic Cannon Law. I felt that the Civil Partnerships Act was a missed opportunity to end the state monopoly on legitimate marriage, something I view as a state control of something which is profoundly personal, and for many people a religious sacrament. There was an opportunity to reassign the rights and protections afforded to "married" couples to a gender blind legal contract recognizing a "partnership" and registered with the state. Leaving religions and individuals free to decide whether they believe a given relationship is a marriage or not.


555
I want to agree with your comment
[quote]Faith schools have no place in state education[quote]
but I really can't. I went to a Catholic School until I was 12, and it was my parents decision to send me there. Whether their decision was wrong or right I'm not sure (I'd like to think that I'm none the worse for it, and although I'm not particularly religious now I think it instilled values in me which provide the foundation for my current thoughts on morality), but I am quite certain that it was right that my parents made the decision and not the state. I think the state already interferes far more than it has any cause or right to in how parents raise their children. Indeed, beyond preventing mental, physical and sexual abuse I do not think that the state has ANY right to tell parents how to raise their own children.

I would take huge issue with a state of affairs where a parent had no option but to send their child to a religious school, that would be immensely unjust. But I think it is equally unjust for a parent who believes that their child should attend a school that subscribes to the values of their faith to be denied the right to do so on the grounds that they cannot afford to opt out of the state system.


[quote]NUT by name![quote]

In varying degrees! Some of the more militant of them I would be far more concerned about the ideas that they might try to indoctrinate my children with that those a faith school might espouse! I remember one NUT we had in my (non-faith) secondary school who used to fly a Cuban flag in his garden, rant constantly about how evil the government was, told us all we should be vegetarian, and boast about antics such as getting into fights with policemen at SWP rallies or slashing the tires of 4x4s.


Enjoy!!!


Dom