Word: sharia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...doesn't take much to whip up Britain's irascible press: "Secret courts imposing draconian Islamic justice operate across Britain," read one paper's front-page splash last week, following a BBC report suggesting that observance of Sharia law is spreading...
...papers didn't listen very carefully to the radio program - if they listened at all. The gar doesn't use Sharia law, says Yusuf. "It's not Islamic, it's not religious; it's just a cultural thing." And one the BBC reporter later conceded the case was a "rare oddity," which had been taken out of context by the papers crying foul...
...episode highlights the hair-trigger sensitivity to Islamic issues in Britain today. While the presence of parallel legal systems in ethnic communities may alarm the British, it's the perceived growth of a parallel Islamic culture that causes most concern. Hence, the slightest suggestion of Sharia law on British turf hits the headlines in a flash, and the debate over Muslim women wearing the veil rumbles on. (A poll this week found one in three people would support a ban on face-covering veils in public places...
...from furthering segregation, some respected commentators suggest Sharia law courts could actually help social harmony. Nor are they all that unusual: Muslim communities in Britain have long turned to the Sharia council to settle such civil matters as property disputes and divorce battles, though their rulings are not legally binding. The system is much like that used by observant Jews, who regularly take civil matters to a Beth Din rabbinical court in north London, where they are resolved according to Jewish...
...There's something to be said for having English law working in tandem with the Sharia council," says Aina Khan, a London solicitor who specializes in finding solutions under English law that are compatible with Islamic law. "It's faster for the court and would save thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of pounds of taxpayers' money." The average cost of hearing a case through a Sharia council is a mere $200. Complainants appeal separately to the council - a group of imams and solicitors - who decide on a resolution to suit both parties either by consensus, or by majority vote...