Justice For All?

Sharia Law is being increasingly used by Muslim communities in the UK and other countries, often by those immigrants who have little in common, either linguistically or culturally with Britain. It is a system of law derived from a combination of sources including the Quran, the Hadith (which are a collection of stories based on the life of the prophet Muhammad), and Fatwas, which are rulings of Islamic 'scholars'.

However there are a number of issues with this as the basis of fair laws:

1. Women are not considered the equal of men in both the Koran and Sharia Law (Quran 4:34 – ‘Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient’).
2. The Hadith were only collated long after his death (around 200 years later) and were maintained in just oral tradition, and many seem to have been created decades or centuries after the events. Turkish scholars have acknowledged that these have been  much added to over the centuries, and many stories were added to suit local leaders (religious or otherwise) needs at the time of their creation, so are not a safe source. Interestingly the Sunni and Shia have many different stories in their Hadith which makes them even more problematic.
3. The Hadith includes such things as the basis for men taking child brides (Muhammad married Aisha when she was aged 9 or 10 and he was a man in late middle age).
4. Fatwas have not prominence over each other and therefore can be and often are contradictory - anyone who is deemed a religious leader locally can pass them as long as they have been 'trained' in Islamic law (which can mean many things) and  unlike for example the Catholic Pope, there is no overarching authority on the rulings. Fatwas are not universally binding; which makes Sharia law non universal or consistent. An example of a fatwa was the Sudanese Teddy Bear name Muhammad story, when a Fatwa by a local cleric decided to punish a foreign teacher for the fact that her kindergarten kids named a Teddy bear 'Mohammed'.

Men Demonstrating For Sharia Law - they cover their faces.

Just today, three Muslim men (Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed) have been found guilty of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation when they handed out leaflets entitled "Death Penalty?", "Gay - an acronym for God Abhors You" or "Turn Or Burn" at a mosque and through local letterboxes in Derby, calling for homosexual people to be given the death sentence. In the leaflets they quoted the same Islamic texts which would also be used in Sharia laws and jurisprudence. They said this themselves in their defence .... they claimed they were simply following and quoting what their religion taught them about homosexuality and did not intend to threaten anyone.

And in case you think that these Sharia laws are never applied, and don't 'threaten anyone' ... on December the 12th in 2011 (a month ago) the Saudi Courts executed a woman for practising "witchcraft and sorcery" and in October 2011 a Sudanese man was publicly beheaded in a car park in the city of Medina for "witchcraft and sorcery".

Sharia Executions are public

These are not isolated cases, and this is not a theoretical discussion. An ICM opinion poll in 2006 showed that 40% of Muslims in the UK wanted Sharia Law in parts of Britain. In Pakistan in 2009, a poll showed the following levels of support for aspects of Sharia .... 

Pakistani Opinion Supports Sharia Punishments

 ... and whats opinion in Pakistan today, arrives in Britain tomorrow. 

Finally, the Muslims in the UK actively benefit by the UK having 'secular' laws that protect them, while they reject the idea of the host society having any jurisprudence over them. Sadly this just another example of the vast majority being asked to bow to the demands of a 'special' minority, who just refuse to try to fit in with the host society. "Justice for all" should be same for both men and women, and for all religions or the non religious ... not one law for us, and another set of laws for a religious group.