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TweetAnd the Brits do nothing but sit back and watch it happen.
For British Muslims, many of whom have one foot in Piccadilly Circus and the other in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Somalia, the British legal system is available, as it is to all. But it is singularly impotent when it comes to civil issues such as marriage, divorce and other disputes whose dispensation in heaven is often perceived as more crucial than any ruling that might be handed down by an English judge in a horsehair wig.
…Little known to the general public, though, is that Sharia is quietly being applied every day in Britain, via Sharia councils that dispense Islamic civil justice in more than half a dozen mosques across the country.
The councils do not involve themselves in criminal law or any aspects of civil law in which they would be in direct conflict with British civil codes. The vast majority of their cases cover marriage and divorce. By consent of all parties, they may also arbitrate issues of property, child custody, housing and employment disputes, though their rulings are not binding unless submitted to the civilian courts.
“It is known that English judges are willing to accept agreements like this that are reached in Sharia courts, as long as it has been put into proper form,“ said Mohammed Siddique, a paralegal who advises the Sharia council in Dewsbury, in northern England, on the technicalities of British law.
“It saves time and hassle for the court, and it shows that both parties are willing to compromise and reach some sort of agreement.”
…..Under many interpretations of Islamic law, men can easily obtain a divorce — known as talaq — by simply declaring their intention three times. A woman, however, usually needs the pronouncement of a Muslim judge who is a scholar in the field of Islamic jurisprudence.
hattip: ZIP
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