A sense of déjà vu at The Times:
How the UK became ‘western capital’ for sharia courts
Muslims are increasingly turning to Britain’s sharia courts, which are not part of UK law and operate as informal bodies
…The number of sharia courts, also known as councils, in Britain has grown to 85 since the first began operating in the country in 1982.
That figure of “85” appeared in a Daily Mail headline nine years ago, which tends to undermine the “increasingly turning” news hook. Either the number of sharia councils (actually the preferred term) has been static for a decade, or else the newspaper of record has simply recycled old information. If the latter, we might suspect that the true figure today is more than 85, but one wonders why The Times hasn’t bothered to look into it. It is also surprising that an article about the “how” of why there so many in the UK makes no mention of the Arbitration Act 1996, which opened the door to voluntary alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
The article is illustrated with an old photo of burka-clad extremist protestors holding banners stating “SHARIAH The solution for the East and the West”, followed by “Democracy go to Hell”. This crudely polemical choice out-Daily Mails the Daily Mail, which in 2015 at least used relevant photos of sharia councils in action.
After describing the UK as the “western capital” for sharia courts (although quotemarks are used, the description is not attributed to anyone), the paper explains that
An investigation by The Times also discovered that polygamy is so normalised that an app for Muslims in England and Wales tocreate Islamic wills has a drop-down menu for men to say how many wives they have. The app,approved by a sharia court, gives daughters half as much inheritance as sons.
“Discovered” in such a context has strong connotations of something hidden from view that has now been exposed, but here it really has no more import than “noticed”. The app is not named, but I quickly found what is billed as “The World’s First Islamic Inheritance App” on the website of a solicitor’s firm in Birmingham.
Much of what follows in the article is – like the “85” figure – a rehash of old information: a notoriously misogynistic 2009 quote from Haitham al-Haddad; criticisms from Sara Khan and Caroline Cox; and how the issue has previously been addressed in Parliament. Also:
Women described how men exploit religious texts to exert control over them. Hadiths, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, are quoted to insist wives must agree to have sex with their husbands and to claim that women’s minds are deficient.
One woman was distressed when an elder suggested she should enter into a religiously sanctioned “pleasure marriage” which allows couples to have sex, then part.
It’s not clear if these women gave their accounts to the journalist or whether they were passed along second hand, but given the derivative nature of much of the “investigation” one has to suspect the latter.
Of course sharia councils, like any number of things, should continue to come under scrutiny, but it’s not clear why a story that makes such a token effort at originality has appeared now. Perhaps it’s a vehicle for Nick Timothy MP, who provides a quote:
Nick Timothy, a Tory MP who as [Theresa] May’s chief of staff suggested the sharia review [see below], called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the councils. Sharia marriages “should be criminalised if they are conducted without the protections of an accompanying civil marriage”, he said.
There are also references to a new code of conduct suggested by the Muslim Women’s Network charity, and further criticisms from the chief executive of the National Secular Society:
Our concern is the slide towards privatised justice and parallel legal systems in the UK undermining the principle of one law for all — and the negative impact this has on the rightsof women and children.
As expected, the article has been seized on by the populist right, with Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice describing it (absurdly) as a “SHOCKING EXPOSE” and stating that
We are Christian based nation with our English legal system… As @reformparty_uk said at Election, this must be banned.
How banning private arrangements would be achieved is not explained, although Reform’s rhetoric in other contexts tends towards regarding legal obstacles as elite impositions. Theresa May’s Home Office review, which appeared in 2018, also addressed the questions of banning:
It should also be noted at the outset that those proposing a ban on sharia councils provide no counter proposal or any solution for anyone seeking a religious divorce. It is clear from all the evidence that sharia councils are fulfilling a need in some Muslim communities. There is a demand for religious divorce and this is currently being answered by the sharia councils. This demand will not end if the sharia councils are banned and closed down and could lead to councils going ‘underground’, making it even harder to ensure good practice and the prospect of discriminatory practices and greater financial costs more likely and harder to detect. It could also result in women needing to travel overseas to obtain divorces, putting themselves at further risk.
We consider the closure of sharia councils is not a viable option. However, given the recommendations also proposed in this report include the registration of all Islamic marriages as well as awareness campaigns it is hoped that the demand for religious divorces from sharia councils will gradually reduce over time. These key recommendations address the issue of current discriminatory practices identified within the sharia councils.
One approach to curbing excesses was suggested way back in 2010 by One Law For All, but that involved human rights legislation that Reform also opposes. It seems to me that legal advances in the concept of coercive control might be relevant.
Follow up
The Times followed up its supposed “investigation” with a piece titled “High Court fatwa ruling raises alarm over sharia courts in UK”:
Haddad’s sharia council issued a fatwa which was used by an English judge in a life-or-death decision involving a sick child. Tafida Raqeeb, then five, was suffering from brain damage with no chance of recovery and was facing withdrawal of treatment by Barts Health NHS Trust in London which would have led to her death.
Her Bangladeshi parents obtained a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe, as it was then called, in 2019 that it was “absolutely impermissible for the parents, or anyone else, to give consent for the removal of the life-supporting machine from their child … This is seen as a great sin that has a multitude of grave consequences for them [in] this life and the hereafter.”
Mr Justice Macdonald said in the High Court he had the benefit from the parents of “a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe”. The judge observed that prolonging treatment “permits Tafida to remain alive in accordance with the tenets of the religion in which she was being raised and for which she had begun to demonstrate a basic affinity”.
That “alarm” is somewhat belated given that Raqeeb v Barts NHS Foundation Trust & Anors dates back to October 2019 – the judgment can be seen here. In paragraph 169, the judge wrote:
Turning to the principle of the sanctity of life, the parents have, understandably, placed emphasis on the contents of the fatwa secured from the Muslim Council of Europe. Within the context of these proceedings however, the fatwa is simply a valuable restatement of the sanctity of life, a sanctity recognised by all the great religions and also by those who view life through a secular or scientific prism.
Not unreasonably, it was considered relevant to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Again, why exactly is The Times raking over this old material?
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