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Great Britain is shocked at the prospect of "Islamisation" of the nation's public square and along with Canadian and the U.S. media are turning the poor Archbishop into a villain, in whose observation details, they feel the 'devil' lies hidden.
To stop the tirade---which is yet to subside since his critics demand nothing short of his resignation---he clarified his "unclarity" that he did not mean to bring into focus a particular community, but stood firm on his comment made in the light of better social cohesion.
As a highly regarded theologian, Dr. Williams did not mean to subvert the British law, but instead wanted some aspects of the Islamic law---marriage, divorce, and inheritance---to be recognized. He did not mean a parallel law, but a legitimate law for the 1.8 million Muslims of Great Britain. Moreover, most of them hail from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In addition, little did this writer expect a row to erupt over Sharia law when he wrote the article on honor killings in the United Kingdom, two weeks ago.
Tracing back "honor killings" once again -- a phenomenon mostly amongst the South Asian Muslim community in the United Kingdom -- which takes place to force or end a marriage relationship without having any sanctity in Islam. Or, to be precise, without the principles regarding marriage as laid down in the Sharia law -- grossly misunderstood and confused with only the harsh flogging, stoning and judgments on adultery and theft under criminal law, not civil law -- portions of which the Archbishop thought was unavoidable in the United Kingdom.
Sharia law has several schools based on the Koran, sayings of Prophet Muhammad, consensus and analogy. It relies on centuries of Islamic jurisprudence. Muslims from the sub-continent follow the Hanafi School, which emphasizes more on reasoning or consensus.
Marriage in Islam under Sharia law is a union between two individuals only with their consent. Parents or guardians can choose a groom for their girl, but cannot force her into marrying. She has the right to say 'no'. Even a divorced or a widowed woman cannot be married without her consent. Therefore, when a British born Muslim girl is forcibly married to a middle-aged tribal from a dusty Pakistani village, or when the marriage of a British girl of Bangladeshi origin is "sealed' over telephone to a lame, handicapped man back home, their parents follow their concocted laws instead of Sharia.
Recognition of Islamic marriage laws in the United Kingdom will fortify the hands of police officers who shy away from helping abused girls. Moreover, South Asian police officers on the beat will have to take the offending parents to task and save many innocent lives. In addition, not running parallel to, but under British law will ensure voluntary, not forced compliance by Muslim women born and bred in the United Kingdom.
Sharia's safety net for the unfortunate girls and women in male-dominated families was overlooked by the media, as was the need for unanimity or at least a majority consensus among the 1.8 million Muslims in Great Britain and Islamic scholars who will be involved in analogy and reasoning of the law. This is unclear in the Archbishop's generalization.
The specter of a multi-cultural U.K. and the paradigm shift of wealth to Middle East and the new Asia are still at odds with the British psyche.
A global credit squeeze and a weak dollar may make Shaira bonds imperative in UK to attract oil rich Arab money and move a recessionary U.S. -- where China wields considerable financial muscle to seek money from non-conventional sources.
Unlike debt-based bonds, Sharia bonds are asset based and instead of interest, rents accrue from them. Again, the fear of free flow of terrorist money is hyped as several firewalls are already in place in western financial institutions since the terrorist attacks on Sep.11, 2001 on the World Trade Center, in New York.
While U.K. Treasury officials feel the need for big investments and British Muslims to park their funds in banks and post offices, the media and Englishmen also need to adjust to shifting socio-cultural and economic realities even though they have not remained eternal, as they might have wished.
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)
