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February 07, 2008

Sharia in Britain? We think not..

_42523449_rowan_williams_pa_bodyOur sister blog, Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith, offers a magnificent response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's plea for Sharia law to replace - in small part at least - the thousand years' evolution of common and equal British law.  "Has the Archbishop gone bonkers?"  she asks, and it takes a lot to rouse our civilized religion correspondent  to such bluntness.  I commend it. 
       All Faith Central has to add is that he chose a lulu of a day to make this suggestion to a country with less than 3% Muslim population, given the latest news from the Islamic police state of Saudi Arabia.  A western businesswoman has been arrested for sitting with a man in a Starbucks.  This follows a raft of other cases all in this 21st century; teenagers beheaded,  girls burnt to death because the religious police wouldn't let them out of the building wrongly dressed where unrelated men could see them...persecution of homosexuals, terrifying hounding of women, beating up of British Shia pilgrims and arrests of Christians...
      Interestingly,  there is now a reported unease among the Saudi authorities about the power of the religious police; last year there were promises to curb their power.   The Archbishop is not recommending brutal extremes, of course not, and Islamic law is not all bad.  But - as he would put it - we have to "face the fact" that it will take years of visible, measurable civilization and liberalization in Islamic states - Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan in particular - before British opinion will do anything but shrink in horror from the idea of any aspect of it being permitted to replace the rights and duties of British citizens under Britishlaw.                                                                                                                                           
    The BBC, ever even-handed, makes a brave stab at a parallel with the very limited Jewish courts , the Beth Din, which operate by mutual consent in business and marital matters in the Jewish community.  It is not a parallel which holds up for long, though.   Sharia apologists want much, much more. 

Posted by Libby Purves on February 07, 2008 at 11:17 PM in Shari'a | Permalink Bookmark and Share

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Sharia in Britain? We think not..

_42523449_rowan_williams_pa_bodyOur sister blog, Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith, offers a magnificent response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's plea for Sharia law to replace - in small part at least - the thousand years' evolution of common and equal British law.  "Has the Archbishop gone bonkers?"  she asks, and it takes a lot to rouse our civilized religion correspondent  to such bluntness.  I commend it. 
       All Faith Central has to add is that he chose a lulu of a day to make this suggestion to a country with less than 3% Muslim population, given the latest news from the Islamic police state of Saudi Arabia.  A western businesswoman has been arrested for sitting with a man in a Starbucks.  This follows a raft of other cases all in this 21st century; teenagers beheaded,  girls burnt to death because the religious police wouldn't let them out of the building wrongly dressed where unrelated men could see them...persecution of homosexuals, terrifying hounding of women, beating up of British Shia pilgrims and arrests of Christians...
      Interestingly,  there is now a reported unease among the Saudi authorities about the power of the religious police; last year there were promises to curb their power.   The Archbishop is not recommending brutal extremes, of course not, and Islamic law is not all bad.  But - as he would put it - we have to "face the fact" that it will take years of visible, measurable civilization and liberalization in Islamic states - Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan in particular - before British opinion will do anything but shrink in horror from the idea of any aspect of it being permitted to replace the rights and duties of British citizens under Britishlaw.                                                                                                                                           
    The BBC, ever even-handed, makes a brave stab at a parallel with the very limited Jewish courts , the Beth Din, which operate by mutual consent in business and marital matters in the Jewish community.  It is not a parallel which holds up for long, though.   Sharia apologists want much, much more. 

Libby Purves

  • Libby Purves is a Times columnist, novelist and Radio 4 broadcaster. Her interest in the glories, inspirations and eccentricities of world religions and cultural traditions was fuelled by an upbringing in Bangkok, Israel, Africa, France and a series of convent schools.

    Bess Twiston Davies works for the Times Register section and is a regular contributor to the Faith page and Times Online. She studied Hispanic studies and English at Sheffield University and has a journalism diploma from The Robert Schuman Institute, Angers, France.


    Contact Libby or Bess at: faithcentral@timesonline.co.uk

    You might also enjoy Articles of Faith, Ruth Gledhill's wonderful blog about religious affairs.

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