Mick Hartley

From the Sunday Times (£):

The Islamic law propagated by some sharia courts in the UK is more antiquated and extreme than in parts of Pakistan, according to a new book that claims they are prepared to condone wife-beating, ignore marital rape and allow a father to annul his daughter’s marriage if he dislikes her choice of groom.

The book is the result of a four-year investigation into the network of about 80 Islamic “councils” that decide disputes within Muslim communities by Elham Manea, an expert in Islamic law and human rights who is herself a Muslim.

Manea, a political scientist and professor at Zurich University in Switzerland, visited sharia courts in London and the Midlands where she interviewed clerics who have passed judgment on thousands of British Muslims, as well as listening to online recordings of their speeches….

In the book, entitled Women and Sharia Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK, Manea is critical of the political establishment, including Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for its support of sharia courts.

She argues that the courts, which have been allowed to dispense Islamic justice openly since 1982, increase “segregation, inequality and discrimination” and eventually foment “political instability and home-grown terrorism”….

Among several harrowing cases in the book is the example of a young British woman who was forced to marry her cousin in Pakistan and was raped on her wedding night.

Manea says the young woman returned to Britain and appealed to clerics at several sharia courts for an annulment. “They did not care that she was forced to marry,” Manea wrote. “They did not care that she is being raped in marriage, they do not see that as rape in marriage.”

Clerics interviewed by Manea admitted that “many” fathers had been able to annul their daughter’s marriage unilaterally because they did not approve of her choice of husband.

One imam in the Midlands said women who appear before him would inherit less than men.

“We are very happy to give the woman half and the man double because I think this is a very fair way of dealing with the situation,” he said.

Manea quotes a prominent cleric from a sharia court in east London who said there was “no particular age” for a girl to marry, before adding: “Normally the younger the better.”

Asked if that complied with the “rule of the land”, he replied: “Not necessarily . . . if there is a way to live and avoid those anti-Islamic laws . . . you should go for that choice.”

A different imam suggested “puberty is the right age” for a girl to marry if her father agrees, adding: “In some societies, 12 or 13-year-old women, girls, they are more or less fully fledged women . . . you in western societies . . . are having babies, they are having sex, so they are fully grown and fully mature.”

Another cleric is quoted as saying “a man should not be questioned why he hit his wife because this is something between them ”.

In a blunt assessment of the evidence, Manea writes: “The fatwas and opinions of these men have consequences — grave consequences. A child will be raped in the name of religion. Raped. And it will be legal. A woman will be beaten in the name of religion. Beaten. And it will be legal.”

She discovered that a number of them believe girls as young as 12 can be married and agreed with the notion that some offenders should have their hands chopped off as “corporal punishment”.

According to Manea, the “totalitarian” Islamist ideology behind sharia courts also condones wife-beating, permits men to have up to four wives simultaneously and awards fathers powerful “guardianship” rights over children, even when UK courts award custody to the mother.