British Sharia Councils & Women
by Susanna Lukács, Juicy Ecumenism:
Concerns about Sharia in America have largely faded from public conversation. But the role of Sharia councils and how they address women in British Muslim communities are still of public concern in Britain.
Sharia councils claim they help Muslim women get a religious divorce, but this legal system leaves women vulnerable placing undue restrictions on their lives leaving them without any legal protection
Sharia means “the correct path” in Arabic and refers to the divine counsel that one must follow to lead a moral life. Derived from the Quran and Hadith – thousands of sayings attributed to Prophet Mohammad – Sharia not only includes law, but religious observance like fasting, prayer, and ritual practices. It is jurisprudence and law composed by jurists in the classical period of Islam, and interestingly most Muslim societies still abide by the rulings of classical jurisprudence.
Frequently mislabeled as Sharia courts, Sharia councils have an unfavorable reputation in the United Kingdom, and exist in order to provide rulings in accordance with Sharia.
Almost all the Sharia councils, first appearing in the UK in the 1980s, were established to enable Islamic divorces for Muslim women who seek the counsel of an elder when the husband doesn’t consent to the breakup of the marriage. Since there have been cuts to legal aid, making divorces more expensive, the number of married couples turning to Sharia councils are on the rise, posing a serious threat to Muslim women. Sharia councils are accused of operating a “parallel legal system” in the UK, but their rulings have no legal validity, nonetheless they do act in a decision-making capacity. Currently, there is no reliable statistic on the number of Sharia councils in England and Wales: estimates vary between 80-85 and they are growing in number as British Muslims seek Sharia councils to settle their disputes.
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