Shari'a Not Just About Stoning and Amputation

(CNSNews.com) - Although Islamic law is often associated with stoning and amputation, its expansion in Britain would also have more mundane consequences that would affect the most vulnerable members of Muslim society, a scholar warned. Marriages could be annulled and women could lose access to their children or inheritance.

Dr. Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and titular leader of the world's Anglican Communion, said in a lecture and radio interview late last week that aspects of shari'a could be accommodated in Britain.

He has since been defending his controversial comments, telling a meeting of the church's synod in London Monday that much of the reaction has been based on misunderstanding.

Williams said he was not suggesting that shari'a operate in parallel with English law. He also made it clear "that there could be no blank checks in this regard, in particular as regards some of the sensitive questions about the status and liberties of women."

"The law of the land still guarantees for all the basic components of human dignity," he said, expressing regret for "any unclarity" in his earlier words.

Some synod members have called on Williams, whose tenure has also been marked by a global Anglican rift over homosexual ordination and same-sex "marriage," to resign. Others voiced strong support. The 467-member synod, the church's governing body, comprises bishops, clergy and laity.

Shari'a is most controversial because its associated "hudud" ordinances provide for punishments including stoning, limb amputation and flogging for adultery and theft, while apostasy -- leaving Islam -- can carry the death sentence.

(Hudud, plural of the word "hadd," are described as "limitations imposed by Allah" under Islamic law. The punitive ordinances are enforced in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some Muslim states of Nigeria.)

The testimony of a woman carries less weight under the system. One provision requires a woman who has been raped to present four male Muslim witnesses of good standing to back her allegation -- failing which she may herself be charged with adultery.

Recently, the king of Saudi Arabia bowed to international pressure and pardoned a young woman sentenced to flogging and imprisonment after she was gang raped -- because she happened to be with an unrelated male at the time they were both abducted and assaulted. Earlier, the government defended the verdict, saying the charges against her had been proven.

Last month, human rights advocates urged Iran to stop stoning people to death, saying at least nine women and two men currently awaited that punishment. Although a moratorium was declared in 2002, stoning remained in the penal code and the punishments were still taking place, said Amnesty International.

An international solidarity network called Women Living Under Muslim Laws said last week that two Iranian sisters, Zohreh and Azar Kabiri, have been sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery, having already been given 99 lashes.

Although Williams did stress from the start his opposition to the "kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states," some of the critical reaction to his comments has pointed to the gruesome punishments.

But Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, an organization working among Christians living under Islam, said that punishments for leaving Islam also impact on family law -- "the very part of shari'a which the archbishop wants to see applied in the U.K."

They can include loss of inheritance, loss of access to children, and the annulment of marriage, said Sookhdeo, a scholar of Islam who also heads the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity.

He said Williams seemed "blissfully confident" that those who would implement the shari'a law structures in Britain would be enlightened.

But experience showed that such institutions were usually taken over by extremists, "backed by the almost unlimited resources of oil-rich Wahhabism and the various forms of Islamism it supports," Sookhdeo said.

"Embedding shari'a in British law will negatively impact many vulnerable members of the Muslim community: women, children as well as secularists and liberals," as well as Muslims from repressive states who had found refuge in the U.K.

Sookhdeo also voiced concern that "seemingly innocent and gracious concessions [regarding shari'a] ... contribute to building up an Islamization trend which could become unstoppable."

'Hysterical'

Williams' original lecture was a lengthy and philosophical treatment about the limits of a secular legal system in a society where people hold strong religious views.

In a subsequent statement explaining the remarks, his office said, "Christians cannot claim exceptions from a secular unitary system on religious grounds (for instance in situations where Christian doctors might not be compelled to perform abortions), if they are not willing to consider how a unitary system can accommodate other religious consciences."

Britain already has an Islamic Shari'a Council, which deals mostly with cases involving marriage and divorce.

Islamic law also applies in the banking sector, where Muslims can apply for "shari'a-compliant" home loans that sidestep the Islamic prohibition on charging or paying interest.

Muslim Council of Britain secretary-general Muhammad Abdul Bari condemned what he called "hysterical misrepresentations" of Williams' speech.

"British Muslims are not calling for creation of different legal systems, nor is the archbishop," he said.

"British Muslims would wish to seek parity with other faiths ... in facilitating choices for those who wish, as Muslims, for their personal relationships to be governed by a shari'a civil code," Bari said.

See Also:
Archbishop Called 'Bonkers' for His View of Shari'a (Feb. 8, 2008)

Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.