On the anniversary of the interview in which Dr Rowan Williams said it “seems inevitable” that some parts of sharia would be enshrined in this country’s legal code, he claimed “a number of fairly senior people” now take the same view.
He added that there is a “drift of understanding” towards what he was saying, and that the public sees the difference between letting Muslim courts decide divorces and wills, and allowing them to rule on criminal cases and impose harsh punishments.
However critics insist that family disputes must be dealt with by civil law rather than according to religious principles, and claim the Archbishop’s comments have only helped the case of extremists while making Muslim women worse off, because they do not have equal rights under Islamic law.
When will this man retire?
He can continue until 2020 when, inshallah, he could be appointed ethnarch of the kfur dhimma.
As usual, the ABC is intellectually tone deaf: allowing “sharia” thinking into the resolution process in an arbitration matter is completely different from incorporating it into British law. I prefer the thinking of the intellectually honest Winston Churchill on the subject of Islam: “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it”. And quoting from another source: ” Leaving aside that Islam denies that our Savior was fully God, fully man; they ( Moslems) co-opt Jesus by claiming Him as one of the prophets of Islam. When one faith denies the truth claims of another, both cannot be valid”. Rowan, like Jon Bruno in the U.S., who wants to be PB, doesn’t know or seem to care. Maybe it should be referred to as the “Obtuse School” of Christianity.
Given the treatment of Geert Wilders recently, shari’a would seem to be in de facto, if not de jure, control of Britain’s immigration law, too.
Social workers, too, in Britain: Christian foster carer barred for letting Muslim 16 year old in her care convert to Christianity:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1139285/Foster-mother-struck-letting-Muslim-girl-convert-Christianity.html
The UK is steaming full speed ahead into dhimmitude, with RW as chaplain.
I think it’s like pregnancy; “a little bit” doesn’t make sense. If the camel’s nose gets under the tent flap in the form of separate marriage law by religion, it will be hard to keep the rest from moving in.
If people agree in advance to submit contracts, marriage or otherwise, to arbitration by Muslim councils, that’s okay; but the arbitration decisions cannot remove basic rights which are available to all under British law, such as equitable treatment of women after divorce.
There is a point when one has to ask is the CofE better off with something or without it. While much good and on occasion some wisdom comes out of Dr Williams, in the last year we have had an absolute fiasco over his Sharia remarks, his undermining of the established church and his frankly abyssmal handling of some aspects of the Communion which has turned a small matter of discipline for two tiny provinces into a major split with the majority at odds with Dr Williams decisions, notwithstanding how everybody in the Primates meeting and CofE HOB and ACO continues to laud him as absolutely marvellous, holy etc etc.
There is no evidence that people have come round to accepting Sharia – all that has happened is that the newspapers have got bored with bashing Dr Williams over the head over every pronouncement of his.
Hubris, Nemesis and a large dash of arrogance. Ho hum.
“There is no evidence that people have come round to accepting Sharia…”
Not the people, maybe, but the vote-hungry Labor government that Williams supports is another matter. 20 years ago the UK broke off diplomatic relations after the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. This past week they have blocked entry to a Dutch MP warning against the intolerance of Islam on grounds of ‘fear of extremism’. They desperately need those Muslim votes.
Williams is an accomplice in Britain’s decline.
Nobody really listens to the Grand Tufti’s musings – he should be a professor somewhere (he would be happier too!)
The whole idea is flawed even more than has been mentioned so far; the statement, “while making Muslim women worse off, because they do not have equal rights under Islamic law.” is seriously flawed not simply because Muslim women are worse off, but because there is NO equality under the law now! In the christian world, our modern laws were built on “ladies before gentlemen”, and, “the strong protects the weak”, etc.. Just ask any man who has gone through divorce court if the laws treat men and women as equal. I don’t even think that Williams is the great problem here, but rather Egalitarianism. That is/was the first step toward the repression of women, not Williams. That said, having Williams follow a mostly successful Egalitarianism makes Williams’ arguements all the more hazardous.We are not just seeing the proccess of disestablishing the Church, but more important we are seeing the disestablishment of christianity, a far more hazzardous developement.
Don
It is interesting that senior judges are “coming around.” What people didn’t realize, which the ABC did, is that Sharia – of a sort – was already being practiced.
It’s tough to have an Archbishop who is smarter than most people, who distinguishes between laws about divorce and human rights; who knows that if civil society can’t give space for Muslims, it might not give space for Christians. He knows that the state could easily close Christian schools or require hospitals to perform abortions if no small space of canon or religion specific law is respected.
The archbishop never said a woman is required to go to Islamic courts. They are always trumped by civil law. But they may, if they want.
‘It’s tough to have an Archbishop who is smarter than most people, who distinguishes between laws about divorce and human rights…’
An archbishop who thinks laws about divorce are different from human rights isn’t smart at all, just deeply, deeply confused.
RE: “It’s tough to have an Archbishop who is smarter than most people, who distinguishes between laws about divorce and human rights; who knows that if civil society can’t give space for Muslims, it might not give space for Christians.”
Not really.
What’s really tough is to have an Archbishop who believes really idiotic things.
That’s tough.
#11 John Wilkins,
“It’s tough to have an Archbishop who is smarter than most people” Rowan Williams is continually referred to as brilliant but is he an effective leader? The liberals continue to have their love affair with the brilliant. As an emeritus professor, I can tell you that it is important in universities for Faculty Senates to be balanced by University Administrators. If the Faculty ran the university, they would run it into the ground. There were faculty members at my university who slept in their cars because they didn’t know how to manage their own finances. Ronald Reagan was not as intelligent as Jimmy Carter but who had a more effective presidency? IQ is primarily a measure of memory. Leadership is a type of giftedness not directly accessed by IQ measures but is more closely aligned with measures of frontal function. Measures of personality are probably more valid in understanding leadership as measures of IQ.
I worked with lots of kids in special education who had “superior” levels of intellectual functioning but were socially inept/rejected by their peers.
“The archbishop never said a woman is required to go to Islamic courts. They are always trumped by civil law. But they may, if they want. ” This is as naive as our intelligent archbishop’s ivory tower opinions. A woman caught within Islam has no choices. If she goes against the pronouncements of the men in her family or the imam at the mosque, she can wind up with no property and no family and no means of support at all — and that’s if she’s lucky, because with many families, she could also wind up dead.
I know a woman, a European born Christian, who lives in Egypt. Her Muslim husband fell over dead at age forty-nine. Her children were still minors. She went downtown within two days of her husband’s death to register her “conversion” to Islam, because otherwise she could have lost her children and her home. The property had been placed in her daughters’ names four and two-thirds years before the husband’s death. Egyptian law requires five years for the transfer to be valid. Nineteen years later, her she still is, essentially squatting in her home and shaming her brother-in-law into not asserting his legal right to take everything from her and half the property from her children, as sharia law would allow. Is this the result you want in the UK? Once you establish sharia courts with legal authority, the fig leaf of civil law applying will soon be removed.
Time to repost [url=http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/02/heere-bigynneth.html]THIS[/url].
[i] His frankly abyssmal handling of some aspects of the Communion which has turned a small matter of discipline for two tiny provinces into a major split with the majority at odds with Dr Williams’ decisions [/i] —Pageantmaster [#7]
Well said! To which I might add that Williams, as first among equals, had no business imposing his “decisions” to begin with.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[i] The archbishop never said a woman is required to go to Islamic courts. They are always trumped by civil law. But they may, if they want [/i] —John Wilkins [#11]
But didn’t he support a system in which a couple would make a binding election to have Islamic law and Islamic courts decide disputes regarding their marriage, family, and marital property?
If so, consider how that would work in practice: A young woman makes that choice when she gets married. Years later she finds herself trapped with an abusive husband—and with an Islamic judicial system stacked in favor of the husband. Are we to give that system the final say over her property rights and access to her children?
And then there is [url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493645,00.html]this news story[/url]:
[blockquote] The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband, her attorney said — and was found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio.
Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was found dead on Thursday at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder.
“She was very much aware of the potential ramification of her filing for divorce might have,” said attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm, Hogan Willig, represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding. “But she wanted to proceed despite the potential for it to erupt.”
Muzzammil Hassan, who founded Bridges TV in 2004 to counter anti-Islam stereotypes, surrendered to police Thursday.[/blockquote]
What a sad case, but do we really want a case where one party wants civil law and the other wants (and enforces) sharia in Western countries?
You only have to read today’s news with respect to Pakistan ceeding to the Taliban in the province of Swat the institution of Islamic law to realize that it also includes the right to stop women from going to school.
Eventually, Christians shall have to “convert or die.” I know it isn’t politically correct to even talk like this, but Islam itself talks like this, if you listen closely enough. Islam is entirely bent on “making the world Islam” and it will succeed, if we continue our acquiescence to political correctness, and if we continue to fail to point out the moral and eternal deficiencies of the “religion” of Islam.
#19 jkc1945,
“Eventually, Christians shall have to “convert or die.—
He who seeks to save his life will lose it (Luke 17:33). Actually we must die to convert. I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of what you are pointing out. But we are called to be martyrs.
I wonder if +++Rowan would be comfortable if the permitting of Sharia law permits the chopping off of hands and heads? The last I heard, religous murder is illegal in Britain.
#21, perhaps if you read the article you might learn your answer. It’s “no,” BTW.
#19, we are ourselves called to make disciples of all nations.
#16, I believe that Rowan thinks that civil law trumps Sharia law. He is clear that it must be voluntary.
#13: I’m not sure what “idiotic thing” Rowan believes. That Catholic hospitals shouldn’t be forced to have abortions? You think he’s an idiot, but as usual, you don’t point to a reference.
[i] I believe that Rowan thinks that civil law trumps Sharia law. He is clear that it must be voluntary [/i] —John Wilkins
But voluntary [i]when[/i]? Can a woman wait until she’s in the middle of a custody battle to opt out of Islamic law?
Seems like you’re missing the point I made in #16.
And if the husband doesn’t want to arbitrate in civil court but only in sharia court, and the wife is asking for a civil verdict, what then?
RE: “You think he’s an idiot, but as usual, you don’t point to a reference.”
Nope — I don’t think him an idiot at all. Try reading better.
RE: “I’m not sure what “idiotic thing†Rowan believes.”
I’m sure that’s true. ; > )
Because you don’t think that his “views on sharia” are idiotic.
But I do.
As was clear in my comment #13, responding to your statement that it was “tough to have an Archbishop who is smarter than most people . . . ”
No it’s not.
As I said — and I’ll repeat — it’s merely tough to have an Archbishop who believes really idiotic things.
I’m merely asserting — without providing any evidence whatsoever — the opposite of what you assert, JW, also without providing any evidence whatsoever other than your assertions.
#24 – I think the answer is that civil law always trumps Sharia law.
Look, this is how it goes: Rowan believes that 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.
The article CLEARLY states that he believes sharia cannot trump human rights. Second, contrary to many Imams, the ARchbishop assums Sharia is always changing. He believes “As such he said that sharia is a method of law rather than a single complete and final system ready to be applied wholesale to every situation, and noted that there was room, even within Islamic states which apply sharia, for some level of ‘dual identity’, where the state is not in fact religiously homogenous.”
he did NOT say it is a parallel jurisdiction. He did not say that women would be allowed to have their heads chopped off.
That’s fear and slander.
It might be fear and slander, but it IS happening. And in the US too. The poor woman who was beheaded would take little comfort in knowing that her husband has been arrested, since sharia law was appeased over civil law — for her at least.
We can also look at Pakistan to see how ‘civil law’ trumps sharia law there. The short answer is — it doesn’t.
#26 John Wilkins,
Why not answer this thread the way he answered the idea of women bishops?
Church of England members who disagree on whether women bishops should be ordained must find a way to co-exist because neither group “will go away”, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said on Tuesday.
It is clear that Dr. Williams believes civil law will always trump sharia law. I believe he is naive and misguided in this opinion. He can define things as they ought to be all day long, and his definitions won’t change reality on the ground for Muslim women in the UK.
On the positive side, the CofE Synod approved of the evangelization of British Muslims and testified to the uniqueness of Christ and salvation through Christ alone. There’s the real solution: show them the love of God in Jesus Christ. They know God’s uniqueness, but they don’t know His love.
#29 Katherine,
Well said!
The ABC is Hegelian in his approach to all problems, believing a “listening” process for competing views will result in an evolved solution. There is a misguided and tragic civility in this. This is the approach of a man who is unshakably double minded. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). Eve gave a fair hearing to a lie.