Britain: A Secular Nation With Shariat Courts

Justifying Sharia In Britain

17 August 2012

In an East London office, British Muslims consult the legal talents of the Islamic Sharia Council's (ISC) scholars. The dispute-solving Sharia body is the largest in the UK. The books on the waiting-room coffee table, bearing titles such as ‘Tolerance within Islam’ and ‘The Journey of the Soul,’ seem to prepare disputants for a mutually agreed solution.

Sharia law has been applied in the UK since 1982 facilitated by locally-appointed councils, known as Sharia courts. An estimated 85 Sharia courts are believed to be operating in Britain, according to a 2009 report by the think-tank Civitas. They have no formally recognised powers and therefore cannot impose legally binding penalties. However, it is estimated that thousands of UK residents use Sharia courts each year, and they voluntarily accept the rulings – mostly about family matters.
Although widely used, women’s rights groups such as the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation complain that Sharia courts discriminate against women. And, it was these complaints along with British activists who ran the campaign called ‘One Law For All’, that lead Baroness Caroline Cox to introduce The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill in the House of Lords on 7 June 2011. The bill, which is up for debate on 19 October 2012, is aimed at ensuring that Sharia courts operate within the realms of British law. Islamic scholars are noted for claiming they have legal powers under Sharia law.
According to Cox, many British Muslim women do not know their rights under English civil law: “A woman once told me that she came to this country to escape Sharia law, but that the situation was much worse here than that of the country she was from.”
One example of the inequality is the fee for divorce. The application for religious divorce costs 200 pounds for men and 400 pounds for women. The reason behind this is that the process is more complicated and therefore more expensive, while it’s easier for a man to get a divorce.
But the bill could benefit men too. Despite being legally divorced under British law Mizanur Rahman, whose wife applied to the council for a religious divorce, says the council is unfair. His wife has been demanding money from him through the ISC. The council has sent the Islamic divorce papers to him three times. So far, he has resisted signing: “It’s not me but her who wants a divorce, thus she needs to pay," he says.
Anti-Sharia activists say the courts are incompatible with democracy and human rights and thus hard to incorporate into British life. A petition calling for the ban of Sharia courts organised by the ‘One Law for All’ campaign gathered twenty thousand signatures. Activists say “Sharia is the legal arm of a political Islamist movement wreaking havoc across the world and therefore is a threat to secularism”.
Defenders of the courts believe everyone, including devout Muslims, should have the right to settle personal disputes in front of the tribunal of their choice. They say they give Muslims a facility already available to Orthodox Jews under Beth Din courts. They claim that many Muslim women feel the need for a cleric's reassurance that they can break a forced marriage. Financial disputes are also claimed to be resolved quicker and cheaper rather than within the British legal system. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, says he does not see Sharia courts as a threat to the harmony in the UK, either.
The Equality bill will not ban private religious courts, but will place a duty on public bodies to ensure women who have religious or polygamous marriages are made aware of their legal rights under the law. The Bill is also seeking to create a new criminal offence criminalising any person who purports to legally adjudicate upon matters that ought to be decided by criminal or family courts. Lady Cox also insists that the Bill is not aimed at Muslims, nor does it name them. It targets gender discrimination whenever the religion arbitration court makes the discrimination.
However, even is the bill is passed, it may face some opposition from the council itself. Furqan Mahmood, an Islamic scholar at the ISC says, not women but men need to be protected. He says that according to Islam, men have to pay women to get married, financially care for their wives, and support their children even after divorce. He says “Islam makes men slaves of women.”

Catitan Sut:

Menarik untuk menela'ah  berita ini. Sebuah negara secular, seumpama Britain mengamalkan sikap toleransi beragama sehingga membenarkan wujudnya mahkamah shari'at bagi mengadili permaslahan rumah-tangga keluarga muslim.

Apakah dengan wujudnya mahkamah seumpama ini, maka dari segi kefahaman politik semasa kita boleh istilahkan Britain sebagai Negara Islam? Sudah tentunya tidak.

Bagaimanapun kita berharapkan suatu masa depan , Britain akan menjadi sebuah Negara Islam dengan sepenuh maknanya. Hal ini pernah dinyatakan oleh novelis Anthony Burgess pada tahun awal 80'an, yakni Islamlah agama paling sesuai untuk berkembang di kawasan Urban Europe. Kerana memang Islam mempunyai akar-tunjang dalam sekitar yang urban (madani), berlainan dengan sejarah terawal agama Yahudi atau Kristian.

Kita mengetahui di dalam sejarah ummah ketika terdapatnya penindasan agama di negara-negara tertentu, maka golongan yang tertindas tersebut telah berpindah ke kawasan taaluk ummah Islam untuk mencari perlindungan. Pihak penguasa Islam memang diakui dari segi sejarahnya, secara relatif bersikap paling tolerant terhadap penganut agama lain. Kalau di zaman Uthmaniyyah, terdapatnya sistem Millet, yang mengakui kewujudan komuniti2 agama yang berbeza.

Begitupun Islam memang mengajar kita, ummahnya, untuk bersikap kasih-sayang sesama sendiri, serta tegas terhadap golongan kafir. Kita diajar akan mengenakan jizyah ke atas orang kafir, serta mengecualikan mereka dari dikerah menjadi tentera , sebagaimana kita dikerah untuk berperang mempertahankan kedaulatan pemerentah dan tanahair Islam. Dalam ketegasan kita itu, kita diperentah supaya berlaku adil terhadap golongan kafir, mengiktiraf hak-hak mereka serta tidak menafikan apa yang selayaknya bagi mereka.

 

Sejarah Islam memang gemilang dalam menyantuni rakyat bukan Islamnya sehingga ada masanya yang dilihat sikap penguasa terhadap golongan kafir itu terlalu lunak. Berlainan sekali dengan sejaran barat, sejarah mereka dicemari pemaksaan di sana-sini. Lihatlah apa yang berlaku kepada kelompok bangsa asal benua Amerika Utaranya serta Selatannya serta kepercayaan mereka ini. Tamaddun ratusan tahun Aztec seakan-akan tiada makna, serta penduduknya dilanyak sehingga wujud mereka seakannya tiada. Begitu juga pengalaman di Andalusia.

Dengan bekal sejarah yang gemilang ini memang tidak memadai untuk kita mengangkat dada dengan dakwaan yang layanan penguasa kita kepada ummah serta rakyat mereka adalah layanan mithali. Kita melihat bagaimana kezaliman yang berlaku di Myanmar, serta bagaimana pihak berkuasa Bangaladesh tergamak mengusir pelarian Rohingya yang menghampir pesisir pantai yang menaiki kapal kecil dan sampan.

Kita perlu kembali kepada nas-nas kitab ulama silam untuk memahami semula kefahaman dan amalan dalam hubungan sesama rakyat dari latar-belakang agama yang berbeza. Kita tidak perlu merasa mundur untuk kembali semula, kita tidak gusar dituduh mengamalkan sikap diskriminasi sekiranya ada elemen tersebut dalam ajaran agama kita. Yang kita bimbang kita membelakangkan ajaran-ajaran agama, kebijaksanaan ulama silam kerana mahu menjadi ' jaguh hak-hak persamaan', atau kita bimbang kita bertindak zalim atau melampau yang memang dilarang oleh Islam terhadap orang kafir kerana didorong oleh semangat tanpa bimbingan ilmu. Marilah kita amalkan apa yang diajar oleh agama kita.

Tulisan catitan sut bagi artikel ' Islamism is dead'  yang dicatitkan seminggu dua lepas agaknya masih relevan untuk direnung dlam kita melihat isu-isu sebgini di tanahair kita.