ONE LAW FOR THE JEWS, NO LAW FOR THE MUSLIMS

I have been deliberating over the weekend as to whether or not to blog on the subject of Sharia law, and the predictable (and predictably nauseating) 'row' generated in our tolerant, thoughtful and reasoned media(!)

The fact of the matter is this: the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of this country’s most serious and interesting thinkers, did not ‘call’ for Sharia law and nor did he advocate a parallel and separate legal code outside of British law for religious minorities like the Muslim community. Given the hysterical reaction to his comments, I am convinced that 99.9 per cent of his critics in the press have not even bothered to read his lengthy, nuanced and erudite speech in full. You can read it here. I urge you to do so, before passing (mindless, uninformed) judgement a la the press pack.

One point, however, I would like to make is this (and forgive the perhaps superficially – yet unintended – anti-Semitic undertones): what about the Jews? I know, I know. Every time something ‘bad’ happens to Muslims, or Islam gets a bad press, we Muslims like to blame the poor ol’ Jews and look for a Jewish cause or a Jewish excuse. In this particular case, I have no intention of blaming them or castigating them but simply drawing attention to the typical double standards of our media pundits, commentators and pontificators. After all, the papers have been full of articles decrying the Archbishop’s comments, on the seemingly reasonable grounds that there should be one British law, which should apply to one and all, in an equal manner – no exceptions, therefore, for those hand-chopping, adulterer-flogging backward Muslims! Yet there has been hardly any mention in this whole debate of the (Yiddish) elephant in the room. What about the Beth Din, the orthodox Jewish rabbinical courts that are in daily use across Britain, and have been for centuries? Why no mention of them in this whole Islamophobic furore?

One rare report that touched on this issue appeared on the BBC website on Thursday:

“British Jews, particularly the orthodox, will frequently turn to their own religious courts, the Beth Din, to resolve civil disputes, covering issues as diverse as business and divorce.

"There's no compulsion", the registrar of the London Beth Din, David Frei, said. "We can't drag people in off the streets."

"Both sides in a dispute must be Jewish, obviously, and must have agreed to have their case heard by the Beth Din. Once that has happened, its eventual decision is binding.”

There is no compulsion but the decision is binding, under English law, which recognizes civil arbitration. So there you have it: if Sharia courts are introduced, it will be the end of the world as we know it, homosexuals will be thrown off the top of Big Ben and adulterers will be stoned in Trafalgar Square, and the Muslims will be free to govern and judge themselves according to their own medieval and backward laws. That’s the current media narrative. The only problem is that Muslims are not calling for the Islamic penal code (if such a thing even exists in a singular, unanimous and agreed-upon form) to be introduced into British law, and nor did the Archbishop even refer to this aspect of the Sharia. Muslims – and I refer here to some Muslims; not all Muslims – are simply, as I understand it, calling for the Islamic equivalent of the Beth Din. If it is good enough for the children of Isaac, why not for the children of Ishmael?

(And there is no point arguing, as 'Mad Mel' Phillips and the rest of the right-wing bloggers and commentators have, that “Jewish participation in Beth Din religious tribunals is entirely voluntary” because so too is Muslim participation in the Sharia courts that already exist in this country. In fact, film-maker Ayesha Khan, writing in the Guardian, correctly points out that many Muslim women in Britain are already “committed to using the sharia system, whether or not it had any recognition in national law” and we must “take seriously their religious and cultural preferences and practices”.)