Sharia Law in Great Britain

I’m a little slow on this issue but I felt that this article in the Asia Times is well worth pointing out. On February 7, Archbishop Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican church, made a speech in which he predicted that sharia law would inevitably be accepted in Great Britain. This article is one of many others written in protest against the speech.

There are plenty of reasons to be dismayed by the U.K. granting legal recognition to sharia law alongside with its own national laws including what many commentators have already described as a means of appeasing fundamentalist Muslims, even if it means sacrificing the liberal values that flow naturally from a recognition of universal and inviolable human rights.

Personally, I must also confess that I find the issue of sharia law itself uncomfortable. Inasmuch as sharia covers areas such as marriage, or food preparation standards or finance in which all of the participants voluntarily agree to have any disputes be arbitrated under it, I, of course, have no objections. But since sharia is supposed to apply to Muslims only, it seems more than a little unfair that Muslims who change their minds and renounce Islam find it hard to do so and hence are still subject to sharia against their will.

5 thoughts on “Sharia Law in Great Britain”

  1. It shouldn’t be surprising that Muslims would welcome greater acceptance among non-Muslims of Islamic institutions. The question is, do Muslims accept that Sharia law shouldn’t be applied to non-Muslims and do Muslims accept the rights of apostates to stop being Muslims?

  2. Yeah, I know what you mean, but I don’t want to comment more about it. I think this issue is too sensitive to, and also I’m not a lawyer 😆 .

  3. While I respect your wish not to comment further, I feel compelled to point out that if the issue is so “sensitive” that two random people on the Internet cannot discuss it freely, then what hope is there for the disagreements and misunderstandings over this issue to ever be resolved peacefully?

  4. While I don’t have any objection with this though I am a Christian. The problem with sharia law if I am not mistaken is that what if the other party isn’t a Muslim should this law be applicable to the said non-muslim if the offended party is a Muslim? And these law has its religious underpinnings too.

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