A Sharia Court in Sesssion

This was held at the Islamic Centre on Park Road, NW8 to which is attached an excellent canteen that gives you lots of rice and curry for £5 a bowl. If you love a good curry as I do, then this is the place you come if you are near Baker Street, Marylebone or Regent's Park.

The scholars sat from 2:30 to 7.00 and were all volunteers. The Islamic Shariah Council is a charity, unlike the business venture that is the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, it was pointed out to me.

They deal almost exclusively with divorce and the property disputes that come with it.

There is more than one school of sharia and more than one group of scholars who interpret the sharia, even in London itself.

I mentioned Anjem Choudary's London School of Sharia to Sheikh Matin and was told that Muslims living in non-Muslim lands were enjoined not to attempt to impose Muslim ways on non-Muslims who outnumber you and may well get cross with you for being a Muslim chauvinistic and ask you to sling yer hook.

(I paraphrase, you understand, for I do not remember his exact words to me while we were in the canteen.)

I suppose the better way to attract interest and converts is to show that one's legal system is cheaper, quicker and more efficient backed by a faith represented by a book that is a warning and a reminder to all mankind.

Tea was served to the observers consisting of myself, a very nice Turkish couple and the pretty Italian lady from Turin by a Sheikh Matin, who is also Clerk of the Court.

Property disputes concerned houses, jewellery, gold rings, ear-rings, bangles, and sums of money.

Annulments were also sought, just as one would if one were a Catholic.

A now Muslim woman who married in church did not have children with her husband. They parted but did not bother getting a divorce. She met a Muslim 10 years ago, married him and now has children by him. Was her previous marriage invalid? It was decided without much difficulty that it was. (Bigamist! I thought to myself.)

An applicant-in-person (who did not mind the presence of us observers) seeking an annulment was a pretty petite young lady who was very certain that she was uncertain. The marriage was consummated but her father disapproved. Apparently he did not pray regularly and even if he did, it was only to impress her father. He had tried drugs once or twice and now had a bad temper. (He became quite bad-tempered after marriage, apparently. The wife could only bring herself to say that she "liked" her husband, complained that he threatened to strike her. No doubt this was because she decided after three days of marriage that she had made a terrible mistake. )

She had also been shopping around for fatwas in the hope of finding a legal ruling that her marriage was invalid, so she could escape this man whom her father disliked and whom she was now no longer sure she loved.

One of the websites she mentioned was http://www.islam-qa.com/en/pda

Her manner seemed to me to be suspiciously hesitant, and her attempts to suggest that she had Islamic grounds for doubting the validity of her marriage not convincing. I was therefore quite impressed by how patient these scholars, who had been conscripted as agony uncles by her, were. If it had been up to me, I would have sent her away with a flea in her ear.

They quite sensibly asked her what she would do if they declared the marriage to be valid. She answered that she would always have a doubt - of the Islamic kind - that it was indeed valid.

They then said that she really must make up her mind and gently chided her for not bringing either her husband or her father along, in which case it would have been decided there and then.

If she was really determined to divorce her husband, then she must petition for divorce. It really was as simple as that, and sent her away.

The next case concerned a wife with 5 children who had been living apart from her husband for 4 years. There was some disagreement between two of the scholars about whether she should be granted a decree absolute in 2 months because of the length of their separation, or whether the absolute should be withheld a little longer because of the 5 children. The former view prevailed.

"Surely you have no right to withhold the absolute from the poor woman who has suffered so long?" said the first scholar.

"Ah, but Allah does!" said the second.

I found it reassuring that there were disagreements and that the quorum is 3, to ensure that justice is done through discussion, consultation and agreement.

It is certainly better than just one judge on his own doing so, who may be having a bad day. The liveliness and informality of their discussions, and the swiftness and efficiency with which each case was dealt with impressed me.

It was pointed out to me by the Turkish man that, during Ottoman Empire, sharia courts would ensure that the scholars hearing the cases were local men of good standing judged to be independent of the emperor. It was a way of ensuring judicial independence.

The final case was the most dramatic.

A very outraged Somalian man came to complain about a certain imam in a certain part of West London who was infamous for issuing divorces as if he were throwing confetti. He would be on the phone to someone else and distracted, speak to the applicant for only 3 to 4 minutes and a marriage would be ended.

Surely he is an Enemy of Islam, he demanded? Surely this is unIslamic?

He came home one day to find the locks changed.

He feared for the imams life he piously declared, because his sons were very angry and he thought they might be disposed to take the law into his own hands.

Wisely, the scholars did not react to any of this, and asked him to put all this in writing properly so that they may investigate the matter.

It was a long day, but very informative and reassuring.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197478/Sharia-law-UK--How-Islam-dispensing-justice-side-British-courts.html