Comments (20)

"Liberals were caught in a classic bind – eager to support diversity and the rights of immigrants, but worried that the introduction of Sharia, or any religious system, would erode the secular fabric of society."

You bet 'cher bippy it would errode the secular fabric of society! You'd be swimming right alongside a parallel Islamic society !
GOD I HOPE the liberals don't take power in the US! Look what they've done and are doing to England!

I know exactly what Sharia law is-- however, someone please give me an example of a country where it is imposed sensibly, with respect to the rights of women?
Can't find one?
Many Muslim countries have advanced beyond Sharia law. Those who still adhere to it are the same places you find fundamentalism, enslaved women and ridiculously unhappy and unemployed people.

Muslims go to the UK to escape Sharia law. i hope the Brits refuse it.

Lets not confuse customs and laws. If Muslims want to have Islamic marriage ceremonies or funerals-- they are welcome! However, as long as they live in England, they are subject to British law, with no exceptions. And by the way, British law is much more tolerant than Muslim countries in allowing people privacy over personal matters. So, Muslims can act out any aspect of Sharia law that they please, as long as it doesn't contradict British law.

P.S: Most Muslims in the UK wouldn't want to live under Sharia law if they knew the first thing about it!

Sue

Not so long ago some pakistani guy was comming to study in London he told that british muslim comunities are from the middle ages. in Pakistan )Taliban Land) people have more rights and freedom them in England. He was furious because british goverment and media showed not so much interest to kick things into right light. not only that, british goverment do everything to give a leaders of those groups (in real mostly smal criminals or mafia clans) right and rule-power in a "comunities". wich defacto are state in a state.

so much i know this dude left England for USA to study there. and i think he did right choice.

The reporter does not seem to be aware of, or interested in, the BBC survey that last year reported that many Muslim women were not aware of their rights... as people living in the UK.... to get a civil divorce. This is probably because of the failure of the Muslim community, through its imans, teachers, schools etc to educate women properly, so that the males in the community can keep control of them, and some apparently charge high fees in worthless sharia 'courts' to women who don't realise thay have other options.

In Canada where the inposition of sharia was voted on recently... Muslim women voted by a majority against it.

The strongest anti-sharia movement is in the women's movement.

It is a body of laws, based upon the Quran and Sunna (hadiths and sira) which is conceived in Islam as the decree of Allah for the ruling of the Islamic nation and its relations with infidels.--

i quest you are the arrogant one here.

aside a fact that there is no islamic nation in the world and Sharia "body of laws" is not based on Quran and Sunna.

Seems there is a lot of ignorance here and everywhere with regards to what Sharia actually is. It is a body of laws, based upon the Quran and Sunna (hadiths and sira) which is conceived in Islam as the decree of Allah for the ruling of the Islamic nation and its relations with infidels. It is not restricted to what some think as innocent laws relating to marriage (even there women are severely worse off) - it stipulates jihad against the unbelievers as a legal obligation for the Muslim community. Read the Reliance of the Traveller by al-Misri. Sharia is fundamentally at odds with democracy since it recognises no law from mere mortals - only Allah's law is acceptable. Wake up Britain, stop listening the nonsense spouted out by apologists and obfuscants!

Jonboy:
<<Here in the UK it is disturbing to see our Government handing out passports like confetti without any thought as to the consequences.

lol. only a country wich is against european immigration laws is Britain, british conservatives and british eurosceptics. quest who stoped christian gastarbeiter from Bulgaria and Romania going to work in Britain. Quest who started a hustle against french, german, portugese, czechian and polish gastarbeiter in Britain. In Britain shools and colleges chinese, midle-east and pakistanian illigals are more welcome than european co-citizens. And that even if EU pays many money for their education. (if you are european citizen and trying to learn English Language try Ireland or Malta. Dont waste your time and money on english education)

<<A population of 62 million.

Wich population? there are only ghettos and "classes".. Britain has no nation anymore. Conservatives scum like Thatcher and britsh old(royals) and new oligarchs(Murdoch&co) killed it.. Britains people(well, almost english) do not even know what they do in EU. How can you talk about population here?

<<It is also being done without any widespread approval. It was not in Labour's manifesto. There is more public consultation allowed over a neighbour's loft conversion than there is over the wholesale character change of the British nation.

What a british nation? ...Hell!? Boy! There are only Londonistan and scotish, cornish, welsh, irish trying to get out of Londons swamp made by conservatives and criminal oligarchs.

<<The deep concern about this might not be apparent to you chaps in the US but believe me it is real. However, the public is powerless to do anything about it.

"Public" is trying to get a ticket to Australia, EU, Canada and New Zealand.

I will add that in reading Jonboy's post that he makes a great point. The government is doing this against the will of the people. The same is happening in the US right now with the invasion from Mexico. In the UK this is happening because of the Oil money and history with Pakistan. In America the slavers want cheap labor. The Liberals think they know best and prance around being multicultural and calling you a racist if you don't go along with muslims killing people mutilating women or illegal alien gangbangers gunning down whole famlies for fun in San Francisco.

What most people don't really understand is that the ultra rich all hang out together. That doesn't mean the rich person in your town with a few million. No it means the world'sold money club royalty, Arabs, multinational owners etc. They hate voters they hate republics and they will not toelerate the will of the people. That's why there are revolutions in history and why these peopel get hung from lamposts and it is surely on the way if they don't stop this.

You are witnessing hte deconstruction of the Liberal (no left or right liberal, but in the old sense of Liberal menaing well considered and thoughtful) West. Like Snivel Chamberlain is allows itself to be raped in the street for what it thinks is a short term respite.

These pandering fools have no idea what is in store for them. As imperfect as the West is it is less corupt and more shining a group of States that have existed in history. The thrird world yawns before us like the broken teeth of a diseased entrance to hell. Below them oblivion.

The thrid world is rife with bribery and corruption where birth and payooffs not merit determine life path and status. Sharia Law is made up crap and the fools supporting it will rue the day they embraced it here.

Fortunately America isn't going along with this nut game. Enjoy having your hands chopped off and worshopping Alah 6 times a day without choice folks.

Here in the UK it is disturbing to see our Government handing out passports like confetti without any thought as to the consequences.

A population of 62 million is more than enough for this small island and the arrival of so many from different ethnic communities is changing the community profile in a way that is unsettling.

It is also being done without any widespread approval. It was not in Labour's manifesto. There is more public consultation allowed over a neighbour's loft conversion than there is over the wholesale character change of the British nation.

The deep concern about this might not be apparent to you chaps in the US but believe me it is real. However, the public is powerless to do anything about it.

Mr.Deb Chatterji has written that unless immigration of Muslims are not controlled, in another fifty years they will swamp the whole country. Readers my scoff it off as an exaggerated statement.
In the southern state of Kerala in India, there is an administrative distric called Malappuram which is prdominantly Muslim populated. In the recent demarcation of electoral constituencies in the state the number of constituencies increased in that district due to increase in population while in other parts it got reduced due to decrease in population. Kerala is a literate state in India where the people in general are educated and have political and social awareness. People are aware of population growth and generally two child norm is adopted. Even Catholic clergy who are against family planning do not interfere with an individual's choice. Not so with Muslims. Except very few educated individuals others do not restrict their family and live in poverty worse than those poor from other religion.
It is realy a sorry state of affairs.
I am sorry it is not relevant to the topic under discussion.

The true issue is not the use of Islamic ceremonies and adjudications in weddings, divorces, etc. This has been going on with other ethnic groups for centuries. The Catholics, Jews, and Protestants all have their own marriage and funeral ceremonies and social frameworks for mediating conflicts.

What is different here is the mass migration of tribal people to industrial societies, particularly France, England, and Holland. Some of the imams who are actively teaching and preaching in Western Europe are straight from the old country and have little if any exposure to modern Western education.

So these secular societies are now having to deal with a population that has not assimilated and indeed is radicalizing some of its youth by sending them to madrassas (essentially, extremist training camps) in Pakistan and elsewhere, all happily paid for courtesy of our friends in Saudi Arabia. The young men who blew up the trains in the London Underground were English-born Muslims who had trained in Pakistan.

The Muslims are capable of becoming productive and prosperous members of industrial societies, but they need to leave their medieval villages behind and adapt to Western ways. To bring village traditions such as female circumcision and the anti-Western beliefs of radical Islam into the West is a step backward and should not be tolerated in the slightest.

Marriage is purely a matter that concerns two individuals. It can be done as per their choice either a civil or religious. A divorce again may be the choice of the concerned individuals but society, that is if it is a civilized one,is also involved. It is cruel of someone if he utter 'I divorce you' three times and walk of leaving his wife and children destitutes. There may be safe guards in the religion to take care of such situations but they are hardly effective at least here in India. Here there are many destitute women who has been abandoned by their husbands.
Here in India some years back there was a test case when Supreme Court made a ruling in favour of muslim wife who has been divorced by her husband. Due to pressure from the Muslim othodoxy the Government then changed the constitution itself to please the orthodoxy. Here everything is vote-bank politics.
It is essential religion and state are completely seperated. All the laws should be a common law of the state. No religion, whether Jewish, Islamic, Christian, Hindu or any other should have a seperated law governing their way of life. Any individual can have their own faith. In the society they have to behave as per the law of the State.

The only solution that USA (United States of America) would not become the United Shariah of America USA), in another 50 years, is to STOP Muslim immigration to USA right now.

We can endlessly pontificate over "religious rights" of all groups. But, just think: if USA became Muslim majority then will it grant equal status to other religious groups or be governed by secular laws ? Has this ever happened in any Muslim majority country ?

Madim says:
"What that compromise is something we are still working towards, and allowing Islamic law in personal matters is a good start.”

Dynamic societies as measured by a number of indicators are found to be inversely proportional to the extent the Sharia laws are applied. Theses indicators include creativity, technological advances, satisfaction of people with their rulers, productivity and material self sufficiency. Sharia laws are static and may have been appropriate for a 7th Century desert community, but would not necessarily meet the needs of fast evolving societies in the 21st Century, especially the more advanced amongst them. That is why people from Sharia countries are flocking to the West. Adopting the Sharia in the West would defeat the purpose for why these people escaped their failing societies.

We don't have these problems in the US because we have strictly secular governance, and the notion of granting any legal authority to a religious body just doesn't come up.

The UK should look carefully at this. Disestablish your church, write a lean and modern constitution stipulating secular democracy, and get it ratified by your population.

Then religious or cultural arbitration can be available to citizens on a voluntary basis, always with the option of appealing to the final authority of the state.

Problem solved.

OK, maybe that's a bit facile. But one thing is for sure ... you need a constitution stipulating secular democracy, and you need it now.

Well, I'm nether English nor Muslim, so I really have no say in the matter. But it sounds to me like the question is whether religious law should be allowed to trump secular law in certain cases.

I say no. We can't serve 2 masters. If they come into conflict, as they are bound to do, we must choose one or the other. Secular law should be trump. On the other hand, if a couple agrees to have a Sharia council mediate their marriage or divorce, I suppose that's all right to. If one party insists on a secular court decision, then the secular court must decide.

--“This is not something unusual,” said Madim, It’s like saying Christians want to live under Christian moral guidelines. When people get married, or divorced, or at funerals, they want an Islamic ceremony.”--

Sharia =/= islamic ceremonies.

Sharia are not islamic laws Sharia are tribal laws wich are just recorded and courted by islamic Prist. Its a Shame when british muslims representation do not know about own job. but its not realy a surprise because its typical for English.

“I think everyone understands that in a non-Muslim country like England we cannot expect to live under full Sharia, so we need to reach a compromise. What that compromise is is something we are still working towards, and allowing Islamic law in personal matters is a good start,” said Madim.
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A good start eh?

A good start towards what end?

And when England is 50% muslim - which it may well be in 40 years - then what?

This sounds to me like the first small step towards the eventual deconstruction of centuries of British Common Law.