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Amazon.co.uk10 February 2008
Is Sharia really that bad?
In the intemperate controversy surrounding the Archbishop of Canterbury’s unwise remarks about Sharia, there are several voices - and not just muslims - pleading for a more liberal view of Islamic law. And they nearly all miss the more important point: why should religion play any part in shaping a nation’s laws?
Certainly, there has been an overreaction to Dr Rowan Williams’ assertion that some accommodation of Sharia in UK law is inevitable. No-one, not even the much (and often reasonably) maligned Archbishop, is suggesting that Sharia’s codes and punishments become part of the UK’s criminal system.
In the face of some degree of hysteria, some of it bordering on racism or xenophobia, there are those calling for calm and for a more dispassionate and informed perspective. In the Observer, for example, Jason Burke’s article Don’t believe myths about sharia law points out that there are those, even women, who welcome its structure and its protections.
Clearly, a few of these reactions are liberal hand-wringing - the kind of multi-cultural correctness that has, for so long, made criticism of religion a no-go area. But there’s no avoiding the fact that there are many muslims who welcome a legal and social framework that is aligned to their religious beliefs.
All of which is entirely beside the point, not least in a multi-cultural society and especially in one like the UK which is effectively secular.
One has to ask, what is the purpose of law and how should it be formed? Our laws allow us to live alongside one another in safety. They exist to bring a measure of fairness and equality. They provide a foundation of reason in our dealings with one another and each individual’s engagement with society.
A law works only if it is universally accepted. And for that to happen, we must all feel that it was created and shaped by a process of reason and fairness. This is not the case with Sharia - nor would it be the case if Christian Reconstructionists have their way in the US and bring about a theocracy there.
Religiously founded laws are constrained by the ideas, prejudices and ignorance of men who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago. For all that Mr Burke may have found some women in Pakistan who are happy to live by Sharia’s strictures (and one must fight the temptation to say that, having been brought up in an Islamic society, they simply don’t know better) wherever Sharia is imposed it turns women into second-class citizens. The near-impossibility of proving rape, for example, is rightly viewed by most westerners as unacceptable.
Religions are not subject to reason. They are inherently irrational and any laws based on them inherit this unreasonableness. The principles guiding what is deemed right and wrong, what should and should not be punished, and what punishments should follow, have not been forged through a process of rational debate and social consensus but are imposed by ancient scriptures or men (always men) acting in willing subjugation to them.
Islam is even worse than Christianity in being rigidly constrained by the doctrines and concepts of the faith. After all, the Qur’an is the final, infallible and immutable word of god. But any faith-based law is fatally limited in the degree to which it can adapt to or accommodate the constantly evolving needs of the modern world.
But let’s touch base with reality again. No-one is saying that the UK will soon see heads and hands being chopped off, or people being lashed for giving their cuddly toys the wrong name.
Sharia courts already operate, unofficially, in the UK. If certain parties agree to use them for civil disputes and are happy to be bound by their decisions, so be it - though as I’ve mentioned previously, there is a serious concern that some members of the Islamic community may be pressured into using them, which undermines the fairness that the law is supposed to provide.
The issue here is what we regard as a legitimate basis for forming laws. The law must be based on our current state of knowledge, the realities of modern society, and the consensual needs and desires of the members of that society. It cannot be constrained by archaic notions and medieval prejudices. Far from accommodating religiously founded ideas, it should positively strive to eradicate them.
