by Dominic Kennedy, The Times
Muslims are increasingly turning to Britain’s sharia courts, which are not part of UK law and operate as informal bodies issuing religious rulings on marriage
Britain has become the “western capital” for sharia courts with men able to end their marriages by saying “divorce” three times.
An investigation by The Times also discovered that polygamy is so normalised that an app for Muslims in England and Wales to create Islamic wills has a drop-down menu for men to say how many wives they have (between one and four). The app, approved by a sharia court, gives daughters half as much inheritance as sons.
The number of sharia courts, also known as councils, in Britain has grown to 85 since the first began operating in the country in 1982.
Muslims from across Europe and North America are increasingly turning to Britain’s sharia courts, which operate as informal bodies issuing religious rulings on marriage and family life.
About 100,000 Islamic marriages are believed to have been conducted in Britain, many of which are not officially registered with the civil authorities.
Sharia was defined, in an official review by Professor Mona Siddiqui, a theologian, as jurisprudence based on the opinions of jurists during the classical period of Islam — regarded as being from the time of Mohammed in the 7th century until the 13th.