Read this article in the Financial Times magazine where Dr Suhaib Hasan is given a chance to speak. He describes himself as a judge (or qazi) with the Islamic Sharia Council. What isn’t in the article but which I know already is that Hasan works out of the mosque and Sharia Court situated at 80 Leyton High Road.
There are several very good reasons contained in this article which reinforce my view that we don’t want Sharia law in this country in any form.
Hasan tells of his work mainly in the field of divorce. He tells how, should a woman want a divorce, a more complicated affair for her than when a man wants one (talaq being so very, very, simple) she has to return her dower to him. She may argue that she needs that financial security to bring up the children but he does not allow her to escape her obligations to her husband on the pretext of taking care of the children, The UK has child benefit so at the Sharia court they know that she will get money from the state. That money is paid from my taxes so that should I, or any of my neighbours fall on hard times there is a safety net. It is not designed for Muslim men to renage on their responsibilities to support their children.
Or he may suggest that if she cannot support them that she gives custody of her children to her husband; generally the woman will refuse. In any event, according to sharia once a boy is aged 7 he can decide where and with which parent he wishes to live. And at the age of 14 a girl is considered responsible, she can trade or marry, and so she should be returned to the man then as it is his responsibility, not her mother’s, to find her a husband.
He also says he and his colleagues want two things to be accommodated into British law.
First the dower.
Second that the 12 Sharia councils be recognised as mediation bodies and the British courts enforce their decisions. Thankfully he isn’t actually getting that yet, despite the appearance to the contrary sometimes. This apparently would ease the pressure on the British legal system, were one section of the population allowed to take care of their own affairs.
Dream on Dr Hasan. What are you Dr of, by the way?