Justice
Suhaib Hasan, a judge with the UK’s ‘Islamic Sharia Council,’ explains about sharia.
[T]he overwhelming majority of our work is divorce…Under the Islamic system, the man may end the marriage if he thinks it right…When a woman applies, the process is called a khula divorce. If the husband agrees, the matter is settled, but if not, we invite both for an interview, and we do emphasise reconciliation.
Clear? The man may end the marriage, period, no questions asked. The woman not so much. The man may end the marriage period no questions asked even if the wife doesn’t agree; the woman may not end the marriage period no questions asked even if the husband does not agree. He can; she can’t. He doesn’t have to ask; she does have to ask. His freedom is in his hands; hers is not in hers. Clear?
Custody often raises problems. A woman might argue that she needs the dower to support her children. But the UK has child benefit so we know she will get money from the state. She can’t escape her obligations toward her husband on the pretext of taking care of the children. We might also suggest she give custody of the children to the man if she cannot afford to keep them; she usually refuses. Islamically, we are at a dilemma here. According to Sharia, at the age of seven, the male children are allowed to choose whether to be with the man or the woman. Females, at 14, the age of majority (when Islam deems them “responsible” – able to, for example, trade or marry), should be returned to the man, as it is his, not the woman’s, responsibility to find them a husband.
Yeah – that bitch – she can’t escape her obligations toward her husband (even if he divorced her without her consent) when she can ‘get money from the state’ so she’d better not try to pull any of that sneaky greedy womany shit on us. We are the Islamic Sharia Council and we don’t take no shit from no women.
I had just finished reading the article and then found your comments! God, what shit this is! This should convince anyone that Sharia Councils should be closed down – now! Why are such kagaroo courts permitted to operate in Britain?
Notice this, in particular, from the article:
They are bringing the light of Islam, no doubt, to Britain, from these bright spots where the perfect society exists! Britain is walking into a quagmire. At this rate there will surely be serious social breakdown. It can’t continue much further, and yet the dream of multi-culturalism lives on.
Perhaps if there are more stupid, bigoted sharia verdicts – with the inevitable media outbursts and personal tragedies – it will hasten a crisis over the Muslim question. When it comes our venal political class and the gutless hacks who dodge the issue will finally have to decide – do we have a proper, secular democracy, or not? Same laws for everyone, or not? Simple questions – tough choices.
Utterly nauseating. I’m having a hard time understanding why the Financial Times printed this straight, no comment. Perhaps they think the horror of it is self-evident? A dangerous assumption to make in these times, as Eric points out.
And speaking of Eric, slightly OT – have you considered writing a book about your experience as a former priest, and your wife’s suffering because of archaic assisted suicide laws? I was reminded how poignant and infuriating your story is when Jerry Coyne linked to it at his blog. It’s a book I’d read in a heartbeat, Eric.
He can end it, she can’t. He can have up to 4 wives; she can have only one husband. Under Sharia law the wife is clearly the property of the husband, or so close to it that there’s no difference.
Why not then set up out at the back of the Sharia Court a used wives lot, where deals can be done with those in the market along the lines of used car trading?
Better still, why not set up a Sharia equivalent of eBay, where the whole transaction can be done from your own home? Trade ins accepted on new models? You bet.
I don’t have a problem with the main thrust of the article but I do think, to be fair, you might have quoted the sentence which immediately follows the second inset quote, the one about custody. “But that is not the case with the British system, which is why we don’t generally interfere in custody battles.” After all, there’s still plenty in what he says to take issue with!
Now that I’ve re-affixed my dropped jaw back onto my face, I just want to say how shocked I am. There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth: Sharia law is blatantly sexist and unjust. The sad thing is, I bet that if in the event Sharia is deemed inappropriate for Britain, at LEAST half of the people protesting will be female.
Outrageous and staggering. Please note, apart from the trampling on the rights of women, the chutzpah of exempting the man from supporting his children on the grounds that ‘the UK has child benefit so we know she will get money from the state’.
Nice to know how seriously Islam takes a man’s obligations to his children. I assume he wouldn’t be exempt from the attentions of the Child Support Agency?
What the hell kind of adverb is “Islamically”? I wonder if they would object to any of the following uses of the term:
“The WTC towers were Islamically demolished.”
“Harun Yahyah is Islamically challenged.”
“Afghan wives are Islamically raped and starved by their husbands.”
“Billions of people throughout the world believe Islamically ridiculous things.”
Sarah, I could have included that sentence, but (coming after the rest) it was incoherent. I couldn’t tell what he meant by it, so I ignored it. Anyway I generally try to keep the quoting minimal – sufficient but minimal.
With their attitudes to women and gays, there must be scope for a genre of Islamic rap music. Of course Islamic “scholars” would need to make sure that the lyrics were halal.
And of course violence is an undercurrent in rap music.
As for the article, Mr. S. Hasan has some serious attitude problems. Twit.
Well, that’s the kind of thing the Daily Mail will pick up and run with.
Okay, so he can marry her in an arranged ceremony where her father has more say than she does, pressure/order her to leave her job and be a housewife and suffer economic loss due to the marriage, divorce her at will, and then take her kids because she’s too poor to keep them–and if she doesn’t like that, well, tough! And it can’t be too bad anyway because she’ll get money from the state!
If I were in Britain I would not be pleased at my tax dollars going to this!
And females at age fourteen have no choice but to go to their fathers, because even though they are “responsible” they are still powerless! And he can use his authority over her to make her marry, presumably. So much for the vaunted “choice” of Muslim women to enter sharia law.
Yes, and they make up for not being lazy and greedy and selfish in respect of overburdening the legal system by expecting the state to bring up their progeny! And I bet Islamic organizations don’t pay taxes.