Ask Me Help Desk - Top UK Bishop: Sharia Law Is Unavoidable

First the UK, then??

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Thursday, 7 February 2008

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK “seems unavoidable”.

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4’s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

In an exclusive interview with BBC correspondent Christopher Landau, ahead of a lecture to lawyers in London later on Monday, Dr Williams argues this relies on Sharia law being better understood. At the moment, he says “sensational reporting of opinion polls” clouds the issue.

He stresses that “nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that’s sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well”.

But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said “there’s one law for everybody and that’s all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that’s a bit of a danger”.

“There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.” …

Anybody for a little Sharia law?

Okay, so, first UK then Canada and then...

No way, it won't ever happen... Its all just a lot of talk, Im pretty sure the numbers of British voting BNP will rise due to his speech though. He had started one hell of a backlash and everyone is saying he will prob have to resign!

La-xx, you are probably correct. I couldn't believe he actually said that. I read this in the Toronto Star this morning, and there will probably be more in the Saturday paper about this.

When you have the time it is worthwhile to read Maj. Stephen Couglin's thesis on Jihad and Sharia law .

"To our Great Detriment":Ignoring What Extremist say about Jihad

http://www.strategycenter.net/docLib...emistJihad.pdf

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"it is the conclusion of this thesis that Islamic law forms the doctrinal basis for the jihadi threat that can only be understood through an unconstrained review of the Islamic law of jihad."

Coughlin theme is that Islam includes a body of law that binds all faithful Muslims to a program of conquest and to resist all attempts to roll it back. He establishes that this obligation is rooted in mainstream, not variant Islam. He argues that current US doctrine refuses to incorporate this fact, preferring to assume that Islam itself is neutral in the War on Terror when this assumption cannot be supported by any reasonable reading of the texts.

Coughlin had been dismissed from his position on the Joint Chief of Staff as a specialist on Islamic law. But has been reinstated .

Dr.Williams assumptions are false. Everyone in Britain can strive to change the law to accommodate their beliefs under the premise that British law is the supreme law of the land. Sharing the law would be a big break in tradition and would be the ruin of British society .

Williams is an ignorant dhimmi .There is nothing "unavoidable" about Sharia law . All it takes is for people to not succumb to it.

The really scary thing about Rowan Williams is not that he is the exception but actually represents the mindset of many . How much better informed are the supporters of certain US Presidential candidates than Rowan Williams?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: What he wishes on us is an abomination

'Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion
Saturday, 9 February 2008

What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion.

Pray tell me sir, how do separate and impenetrable courts and schools and extreme female segregation promote commonalities and deep bonds between citizens of these small isles?
What he did on Thursday was to convince other Britons, white, black and brown, that Muslims want not equality but exceptionalism and their own domains. Enlightened British Muslims quail. Friends like this churchman do us more harm than our many enemies. He passes round what he believes to be the benign libation of tolerance. It is laced with arsenic.
He would not want his own girls and women, I am sure, to "choose" to be governed by these laws he breezily endorses. And he is naïve to the point of folly if he imagines it is possible to pick the bits that are relatively nice to the girls or ones that seem to dictate honourable financial transactions.
Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations.
What's more, different Muslim nations claim to have their own allegedly god-given sharia. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive (What in Allah's name could the Koran have warned about cars?). In Bangladesh and Pakistan, they have no such bar to driving, although increasingly Saudi Wahabi Islam is taking over and we see Saudi sharia taking hold.
It is growing in influence here, too. Ten years ago, the only fully shrouded Muslim women around were from the Arab fiefdoms, the many wives of sheikhs often drawn by cartoonists to convey the absurdity and inhumanity of such cloaks. Now all of Europe has these girls and women rendering themselves invisible in public spaces. It is their elected sharia, so they claim without credibility. There is no agreed body of sharia, it is all drafted by males and the most cruel is now claiming absolute authority.
In Pakistan, on the statutes are strictures on adultery introduced by the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Women activists in that country have given their lives protesting against the injustice of those laws where women suspected of adultery, or rape victims, are punished in hideous ways and the man goes free.
The Iranian theocracy changes its regulations from year to year, capriciously playing with the lives of females. The morality police hound women and girls, beat them up, imprison them for showing an ankle, walking too provocatively or singing in the streets. They fight back but are ground down eventually.
Two Iranian friends chose to die rather than live under the demeaning religious orders. Go to Afghanistan if you fancy a 12-year-old bride – a practice approved by the mullahs. That's sharia for you. Many women, gay men and dissidents came to Britain to escape Islamic tyrants and their laws. Dr Williams supports those laws and, by default, makes the refugees victims again.
Four years ago, a Saudi woman in her fifties came to my home. She was divorced from a Saudi prince who had sent her away and kept her children. What she said about sharia cannot be repeated. She had money, this princess, but no parental rights and she howled like a child in excruciating pain in my living room.
Yet, family disputes, says Dr Williams, would be easier, within sharia. For whom exactly? The polygamous men who live in this country, yes, certainly. Not for their wives who will be told that God intends them to lower their eyes and accept unjust verdicts.
Many will be sent back to bastard husbands or flinty-eyed mullahs will take their children away. In Bradford and Halifax, they may be forbidden to drive or work where men are employed. Adultery will be punished. I don't think we will have public stonings but violence of some sort will be meted out (it already is) with lawmakers' backing.
Sensing the drift in their direction, British sharia "experts" today shamelessly direct female medical students not to wash their forearms, essential to prevent the spread of infections, because that exposes their flesh.
Does the Archbishop even know that sharia comes in many guises and that several schools of jurisprudence have their own versions? The list is long – Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali, Jafari, Salafi and on and on. Ayatollah Khomeini preferred his DIY set of crimes and punishments when he came to power.
No women are allowed to be imams or serious jurists, so cannot help make their own fair and free set of female-friendly sharia. All the systems insist on ultimate truths, hard certainties. Sharia cannot provide solutions to the complex challenges of modern life and many violate fundamental human rights as established by the United Nations.
Taj Hargey, a historian and Islamic theologian, runs the Muslim Education Centre in Oxford. He, with me, is a trustee of British Muslims For Secular Democracy which is attempting to educate Muslims out of authorised obscurantism and non-Muslims into a better understanding of the progressive and evolutionary nature of the practice of Islam.
He is incandescent that Dr Williams backs a perilous Islamic conservatism, already too powerful in Britain: "Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion, largely archaic and outmoded and irrelevant to life today. Most sharia contradicts the letter and spirit of the Koran, distorts the transcendental text."
During his sermons Dr Hargey explains to congregations that, for example there is no blasphemy in the Koran, that the Prophet himself allowed a man to mock the divine revelations. Apostasy, says the holy text, will be dealt with by Allah in the afterlife. Sharia policemen insist apostates should be tortured and killed.
Dr Williams says Muslims want the choice to opt for sharia. What he believes to be choice is, in truth, inner compulsion, the result of brainwashing which begins in the madrassas when girls and boys are young enough to mould.
I have often admired the Archbishop's lofty thoughts, his intellectualism, the passion for human rights, his guts when the Government needs to be chastised. But this time his kind indulgences betray his own invaluable principles and deliver Muslim women, girls and dissidents into the hands of religious persecutors – an unforgivable intervention, which I hope he now sincerely regrets.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: What he wishes on us is an abomination - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Commentators - Independent.co.uk

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Williams is an ignorant dhimmi .There is nothing "unavoidable" about Sharia law . All it takes is for people to not succumb to it.

I will continue to just say no.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The really scary thing about Rowan Williams is not that he is the exception but actually represents the mindset of many .

You got that right. Like your comment on bipartisanship it's the Islamic version of compromise - it means drifting toward Islam. We're already seeing the efforts here (though people will deny or make light of it) in wash basins in public colleges, the Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis, the Florida woman who wanted her DL photo taken with a veil on and the Imams at the airport and such. Did you realize three of those 4 occurred in Minnesota?

When I was thinking about it this morning I figured the basis for establishing Sharia in the US would be Native American courts and guess what I found from Jihad Watch?

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Starting with personal arbitration courts -- similar to the attempt made awhile ago in Canada. "Native American Courts: Precedent for an Islamic arbitral system" by Issa Smith was originally published in 1993, but was reprinted several weeks ago at The American Muslim (thanks to all who sent this in):

The process of implementing Muslim family law will not be accomplished overnight. Changes of their type take place very slowly in American society, and our community is far from being prepared for this tak. I commend the continental council of Masajid for organizing this conference, and bringing together so many workers and thinkers. I pray to Allah the real decisions are made here that can be implemented by those ready to work. However, I strongly urge that consideration be given to political realities and the sensitivities of the American public. Such a radical change in American law—allowing Muslims to take control over their family law issues - must be initiated from the indigenous Muslim community here in the United States. To have it seem that this initiative is originating from overseas or from organizations financed overseas, would create a very negative impression that would likely destroy this effort
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All I can say people is appease at your peril.

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How much better informed are the supporters of certain US Presidential candidates than Rowan Williams?

Darn good question, I'd like to know that myself.

Tom, I tend to agree generally but that has changed in Iraq. Read what a Surgeon in combat has to say:

“Percival expected the enemy to be driven by religion and politics. He didn't see that. Instead, he saw young men with cell phones, gang tattoos and crisp $100 bills that he was told came as payment for planting bombs or sniping soldiers. They shot Americans and Iraqis. They shot women and children.

"These people will do anything. There's no atrocity they won't do," he said, concluding the war, at least in Mosul, was being driven not by fundamentalist Islam but by money. "I met people who appeared to be part of an organized crime cartel, were paid for what they did and there were no lines they wouldn't cross."

It's a point he hammered repeatedly in his e-mails.

"I suspect Iraq has run out of post-Saddam supporters and religious zealots. They are visiting Allah. No society has an endless supply of people like that anyway, political pundits notwithstanding. I see IEDs (improvised explosive devices) but no suicide bombers. My headline would read: US Army fighting Syrian funded Mafia-like organization in Mosul.' If something makes no sense follow the money. Many claim they need the money to support their families, as if killing and mutilating is an OK way to pay your bills."”

Camarillo doctor's emails describe fight for lives in Iraq : Local News : Ventura County Star

Personally, I think it is a great idea. The first person that gets his hand cut off for stealing will send a clear message to the rest of the criminal scumbags out there. Honor killings are a pretty good idea also.

And with political caucus, instead of voting, one group can just try killing off the other side.

The archbishop says his words have been distorted but must "take responsibility for any unclarity...and for any misleading choice of words." Really, really poor choice of words In my opinion. Speaking of a poor choice of words, what did al-AP mean by this?

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Williams said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview aired Thursday that some aspects of Shariah law, a venerable Islamic code of conduct, already fit easily within the British legal system, and he agreed when asked if its implementation was inevitable.

ven·er·a·ble

1. Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position.
2. Worthy of reverence, especially by religious or historical association: venerable relics.
3. Venerable Abbr. Ven. Or V.

a. Roman Catholic Church Used as a form of address for a person who has reached the first stage of canonization.
b. Used as a form of address for an archdeacon in the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church.

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Originally Posted by tickle

okay, so, first UK then Canada and then...

Naw, we're still OK here:
Quebec gives thumbs down to Shariah law

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Members of the National Assembly have given unanimous support across party lines to a motion blocking the use of Islamic courts in Quebec.

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Naw, we're still ok here:
Quebec gives thumbs down to Shariah law

And we are proud of you for it :)

It's a subject kind of close to me since my parents spent 2 years in Saudia Arabia. Guess what rules my mother had to follow? She was happy to be home.

I spend some time in Iran when my father was there. It appeared to me that the Iranians were better off then than now . From my study of the subject the large majority of Iranian youth reject the Mullocracy and long for the freedom that the revolution promised.

Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits

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Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The outcome will chiefly benefit Muslim men with more than one wife, as is permitted under Islamic law. Ministers estimate that up to a thousand polygamous partnerships exist in Britain, although they admit there is no exact record.

The decision has been condemned by the Tories, who accused the Government of offering preferential treatment to a particular group, and of setting a precedent that would lead to demands for further changes in British law.

New guidelines on income support from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) state: "Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate ... The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65."

Income support for all of the wives may be paid directly into the husband's bank account, if the family so choose. Under the deal agreed by ministers, a husband with multiple wives may also be eligible for additional housing benefit and council tax benefit to reflect the larger property needed for his family.

The ruling could cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Ministers launched a review of the benefit rules for polygamous marriages in November 2006, after it emerged that some families had benefited financially.

The review concluded in December last year with agreement that the extra benefits should continue to be paid, the Government admitted. The decision was not publicly announced.

Looks like the door has already been opened in the UK whether the people like it or not.

More Sharia updates:

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A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East.

Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful".

The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world.

It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.

The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community.

But critics say the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain's financial and legal systems.

Dial-a-marriage, eh!

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Islamic law allows telephone nuptials, which enables Muslims to sponsor loved ones to Canada

Long-distance telephone marriages can be dialled up under sharia law and then used to sponsor loved ones into Canada, Muslim leaders say.

Two Muslim leaders have told the Toronto Sun telephone marriages are permissible under Islamic law and require two witnesses and imams here and abroad to conduct the vows, which may have the bride in Pakistan and the groom in Toronto.

Once completed, a marriage certificate is obtained abroad legitimately in Muslim countries and can be used by the groom for sponsoring his new wife to Canada, one Mississauga imam said.

Mumtaz Ali, of the Canadian Association of Muslims, said he conducted a telephone marriage between a student in Toronto and his about-to-be wife in India.

"He was a university student and couldn't leave," Ali said. "It is a civil contract and the vows were conducted over the phone."

A marriage certificate was obtained and the student was able to sponsor his wife to Canada, he said.

The vow takes less than five minutes and a dowry is exchanged to seal the ceremony, Ali said.

Discrimination against woman is OK says Amsterdam major

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It’s one of those basic Western politenesses, giving each other a handshake at the beginning of a meeting. Men, woman, it does not matter, we don’t think about casual things like this. We can not really empathize with somebody who thinks woman are inferior, dirty and impure. Thus when Muslim say, I don’t want to shake you’re hand, you’re a woman. We are confused, if not shocked.

But not Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen. The same mayor who was named Time Magazine Hero of 2005, the “hate buster” that was “key to the city”. The socialist mayor was not confused or shocked, he actually thought is was OK if his government employees discriminated against woman by refusing to give them a hand. He wants that people respect these Muslim employees who think that woman are impure and should not be given a hand.

The mayor told this after questions, in the city council, of local Christian politician Maurice Limmen. In the ensuing debate he said it did not matter if government workers discriminated against woman or homosexuals. As long as they did their work, he did not see any problem. He was explicitly referring to street coaches and social security personnel. The street coaches are a kind of light police force, who work in the predominately Muslim neighborhoods. The statements of the major show that the city of Amsterdam is creating a parallel systems for Muslims, by Muslims and based on Muslim values.