Mick Hartley

Some Imams 'biased against women' is the headline of this BBC piece. And yes, the pope is Catholic. The research has been done by a Muslim think tank:

Scholars at the Centre for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) interviewed 90 Muslims in London, the West Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

They found some women did not get fair hearings in forced marriage, arranged marriage and domestic violence matters….

The CIP's international director and its report's author Dr Irfan Al-Alawi said women seeking help in situations like forced marriages often turned to Imams for a ruling on what to do.

He accused some Imams of "cashing in" on the Sharia system.

On average it may cost someone £250 to go and get an Islamic divorce, he said.

"Our research shows that domestic violence and forced marriages seem to be the dominant problems that women are facing and seeking Sharia rulings on.

"In every case it is a male who is the defendant coming from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh.

"Some ladies have approached the Imams and the Imams… have encouraged the ladies to stay with their husband or with their in-laws, whereby they have a duty bound under the Sharia."

He said he knew of a 15-year-old girl in Pakistan who was tricked into marriage over the telephone with a 40-year-old man from Sheffield, who had the mental age of a four-year-old child.

"The Home Office refused to recognise the validity of the marriage but the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain accepted it," said Dr Al-Alawi.

He said Imams should be working at the heart of their communities showing leadership, but some were failing to do so.   […]

Thirty-year-old Sophiya (not her real name) from West Yorkshire, was 13 when her father arranged her marriage to a distant cousin in Pakistan.

She said that after much resistance she was forced to marry a man she did not want to, but decided to go through with it so she could get back to the UK and put her case to a local Imam.

"I saw three Imams but they all ruled that I was legally married according to the Sharia. I told them I had been forced but they said that did not change anything."

Sophiya decided to try and please her parents and her new husband and carry on, but three years later she sought an Islamic divorce.

"I met some more Imams and said that we had been separated now for nearly two years but instead of giving me guidance with my divorce, they suggested I had to go for counselling or therapy.

"I told them I had been forced and this was not Islamic, but they disagreed."

Such findings will be no surprise to those, like Maryam Namazie, behind the One Law for All campaign against Sharia in Britain launched at the House of Lords last week.