Dear NS and Mr Byrnes

Are you going to do the right thing?

The great majority of your readers have spoken forcefully against any form of sharia in the UK. And, clearly in most cases, this is based on knowledge of the subject and careful consideration.

You should now mount a campaign to have withdrawn the legal provisions of the 1996 Arbitration Act which enable the operation of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal and the unknown number of sharia courts in this country.

Canada has managed quite well without such tribunals or courts.

If you do have such a campaign I can promise you I will take out a subscription to your magazine.

This frightens me. How can one justify sharia law.
I think Sholto Byrnes you cannot make any excuses for sharia law.
ANy debate will be over-ridden by those who want to control everything and everybody.Propaganda can be dangerous.
New Statesman do something

Oh good god, Sholto - you're speaking up for sharia now! No wonder you hated the book I wrote (with a co-author). The wonder is that the Independent commissioned you to write it - and that the New Statesman gives a home to this reactionary dreck.

Have you talked to any of the many many women who live under sharia and would prefer not to? Or those who have lived under sharia and have escaped and would not like to see it imposed in other places, such as the UK? Or do you just discount them all as "too" liberal and secular and feminist and westernized.

And guess who exactly it is who gets done over by family law. Here's a hint: Sholto Byrnes is safe!

Actually Graham & LibertyPhile - I can sense Mehdi Hasan's agenda - having grown up in the middle east. I have dealt with mullas and pious bazaaris all the time. The more pious a Muslim is, the more scum he is with a less developed conscience.

I suspect its not realy Sholto's fault - but rather Hasan's agenda.

But of course its "Islamophobia" (whatever that is) to criticize this perverted ideology. If you criticize Islam, you are supposedly racially discriminating against Muslims. And that is how the postomodern - postcolonial left (idiotic) narrative goes.

The only sensible response to this article - in what's meant to be a left leaning, progressive magazine - is to see it as an urgent wake up call. Influential parts of the Left have become cultural relativists of the worst sort. They fail to see that Islam and especially Islamism are incompatible with democracy, freedom of speech, artistic creativity and sexual equality. Epecially sexual equality.

These red lines are totally non negotiable with religious fascists - and that is what Islamism represents. Shame on the New Statesman and it's idiot writer here for being so intellectually corrupt that theycan't understand that they are defending fascists.

I wouldn't hold Mo's epilepsy against him - though having his followers deck out their mosques in fit-inducing geometric patterns isn't the best way to worship him.

A dumb article, and to those who point out that Christianity and Judaism aren't exactly liberal themselves, well quite: when we start campaigning on their behalf feel free to remind us.

... and what Rob and Ophelia said.

The comments so far show just how powerful the media's influence is over the general population (even New Statesman readers) in shaping pre-conceptions about shariah and Islam in general.

Oh and @Sammy: I am a Muslim that believes the Quran is not the inerrant, unalterable word of god and I am certain there are many others like me.

''Oh and @Sammy: I am a Muslim that believes the Quran is not the inerrant, unalterable word of god and I am certain there are many others like me.''

I'm sure that's true Ajmal. Unfortunately it is also certain that there are many who aren't. And that is where the danger lies. Lets face it, Islam doesn't get a very good press, but are you really surprised? Saying that some countries don't practice the more extreme versions of Sharia is little comfort when we see foaming mouthed ranters on our streets demanding death, beheadings and a return to the dark ages. I appreciate that these are a minority but it isn't a powerful media making these things up. It's out there, it's happening now and it doesn't sit well in a liberal democracy.

@dumdy -

Are you saying that fathers should always get custody of children because they are men? That they should inherit twice because their sisters are all divorced or single and are childless? That the cost of rearing children is exactly 1/3 of the inheritence - hence men should get twice the women, even if they guy is childless and the woman is a widower with multiple kids?

Do you know how stupid you sound? Are you trying to make parody of Shariah law - which you have succeeded, or are you trying to demean all Muslims as believing in such rubbish?

Either way, its insult after injury.

Are you really suggesting that Malaysia is a beacon of progressive Sharia? A country that is increasingly inflicting it's interpretation of Sharia on the vest non-muslim population, esentailly becuase Muslims form the majority and Islam is enshrined in the constitution? Where Malay 'Muslims' are denied basic human rights such as freedom to change religion?

Sometimes there are dangers in approaching subjects like this academically, but sometimes you should really do your research as to what Sharia is and is not. Islam is not a religion, like Christianity, which either to its credit or discredit can affectively 'pick and choose' what particular biblical verses apply on a particular day. Without going into the particulars of Orthodox Islam, Muslims are obliged to follow Quranic law in its entirety, and to always push/strive (Jihad) for a greater fulfillment of Allah's plan on earth - so if only limited Sharia is possible, it will do, but the aim ALWAYS, as an Orthodox Muslim (which arguably, due to its non-'pick and choose' approach, all Muslims should be) should be to implement Sharia more fully. And that includes corporeal punishment, and many (although not all) of the things we associate with 'bad Sharia'

None of this is a judgement on Sharia, but it is a matter of fact.

If by your definition Sharia is a system of law based on general fluffy principles found within Islam such as peach, forgiveness, tolerance etc, you're missing what exactly Sharia is. There are many interpretations, but I sincerely think your interpretations fall way out of what most advocates of Sharia would recognise as Sharia.

Leaving aside the fact that in my understanding, Mr. Byrnes is talking in generalities and refers to what pertains to Muslims in Muslim countries (majority rule fine and Muslims here (except for a tiny fringe who are deliberately given publicity beyond their significance to feed the portayal of a stereotype) accept that and obey the rules of the land - why is it that the West interferes when Muslims in majority countries vote for an experimentation with a more 'Islamic' agenda. Afterall, they have tried socialism, capitalism, dictatorship (often heavily backed by the West) and they want to try something else. It is neo-colonialist and imperialist to try to dictate to people in their countries how to live. The problem has been that the Qur'an is both a spiritual message 'Enjoin good, forbid wrong', 'When your parents reach old age, serve them with kindness and humility as in burden upon burden did your mother bare you', 'God loves the pious, the humble', 'Share your wealth with the needy, the indebted, the prisoner...' 'You have rights over women as they have rights over you' , 'You will find the closest as friends to you the Jews and Christians and the Sabians as they believe in God and serve Him', 'If you are wronged, you can take retribution but to forgive an forego is better for you and more seemly' etc etc as well as book confirming the laws of the Old Testament and Torah. Shariah developed after 200 years to codify and standardise those laws and was never meant to be set in stone but to evolve according to geography, time and custom whilst remaining true to the principles. Obviously this has not happened, but Ramadan has not been the only person to call for this issue to look at - if only to catch up with what Muslim people are already doing - driving, women politicians, doctors working in stem cell research areas etc etc. What really gets my goat though is where is the vitriol of all you posters here about the fact that the Jewish community has its own law courts, has cordoned off sections of London and Salford (for example, where their own laws apply). Is there racism in the selective outrage - remember Lord Lester had to bring in a law to ensure that Jewish women weren't trapped by the 'Get' law. NS is a unique platform but it seems some of the readers belong to the Daily Mail stable.

Excellent article, Mr Byrne.

Refreshing to read well-informed comment on this topic... congrats to the NS for goibg beyond stereotypes and scaremongering. Please ignore all the Islamophobic bigotry it will inevitably attract.

Well, Sholto, will your next article be addressing what sharia actually is rather than what you would like it to be?

Dumdy has given you a clue in defending the principle that a woman's testimony is worth only half that of a man's:

"As for the two witnesses business,this provides the opportunity for sisterhood and solidarity. "

If you are interested in understanding that this principle is in the very bedrock of sharia, I'd refer you to the sources of sharia law: the Quran and the authentic hadiths.

Quran (2:282)

"and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses"

Bukhari:

Volume 3, Book 48, Number 826:

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:

The Prophet said, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind."

Do you agree with Muhammed, Sholto? It seems to me his views are incompatible with basic notions of equity, never mind women's human rights.

To point up the basic incompatibility between sharia law and human rights/liberal democracy, this was the European Court of Human Rights take on it:

"Noting that the Welfare Party had pledged to set up a regime based on sharia law, the Court found that sharia was incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as set forth in the Convention. It considered that “sharia, which faithfully reflects the dogmas and divine rules laid down by religion, is stable and invariable. Principles such as pluralism in the political sphere or the constant evolution of public freedoms have no place in it". According to the Court, it was difficult to declare one’s respect for democracy and human rights while at the same time supporting a regime based on sharia, which clearly diverged from Convention values,
particularly with regard to its criminal law and criminal procedure, its rules on the legal status of women and the way it intervened in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts."

- Solemn hearing of the European Court of Human Rights on the occasion of the opening of the judicial year Thursday, 22 January 2004

Has the New Statesman moved so far to the right that it now sees sharia as superior to the ECHR?

@Oofafoo - I'm aware there are a (very few) Quran-only Muslims, however:

1) The origins of the hadiths are as good as that of the Quran - i.e. human creation/oral transmission
2) Islam can't exist without the hadiths - basic elements such as the number of prayers, the testimony of faith etc. only appear in the hadiths not in the Quran
3) Bukhari (quoted above) is considered one of the most reliable compilers - every sharia scholar of the modern day will have studied his collection and based their practice on it.

And in any event, the basic idea that in matters of witness, it takes two women to equal a man is in Muhammed's Quran itself.

The hadiths just provide his and his followers further thoughts on the subject.

The author writes: "Equally important is the fact that the punishments that cause the greatest outcry - flogging, stoning etc - come under the hudud laws, which are implemented in Saudi Arabia and were introduced by General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan in 1979, but are the exception, not the rule, in most Muslim countries."

OK, so I understand the author is not advocating hudud laws. Fine, but he begins this piece by begging the question regarding hudud laws, and produces an advocacy piece in support of shariah because, as he says, most Muslim countries, with the exception of the KSA and Pakistan, do not implement Hudud. Seems like an odd reason for supporting shariah, when most Muslim countries which formally implement constitutional shariah (and Malaysis is not one of them, sorry) do so in order to implement Hudud laws.

The author spends a lot of time and space in this article saying what sharia isn't. But almost nothing on what sharia should entail. The only real-world example he cites to support his thesis is one story from the Times about an incident involving a British journalist's experience with a sharia court in Malaysia. But this minor anecdotal evidence is very meagre and is not representative of people who live under shariah.

As the author develops his argument and follows up his promise of more detailed explanations for championing shariah law in more detail in subsequent articles, he can then explain to his readers a couple of non-Hudud shariah principles:

1) Why muslim daughters must inherit only half of that due to a son, as prescribed by this Quranic verse:
"Allah commands you regarding your children. For the male a share equivalent to that of two females. " [Quran 4:11]

2) The reasons for why the witness of a woman is equal half that of a man.

Since neither of these positions fall under hudud, I presume the author regards them worthy of support. Indeed I look forward to reading his reasons on why inheritance laws, and the shariah laws concerning muslim women in general is what left-liberals should be advocated by western left-liberals who will never be affected by them.

Blimey. I didn't know it's possible to be inane and demented at the same time.

Sholto, shariah is not cuddly. It maims, murders and imprisons.

By "imprisons" I refer not to prisons, but the position of women under shariah. But Sholto's got form on that religion vs women stuff. He don't like books that suggest that women have a right not to be ruled, whipped and raped by theocrats. They're "strident". The books, I mean.

This is the New Statesman. The "new" New Statesman. Bloody hell. Ever wonder where your readership went?

basically the gist of this piece is this ...sharia is coming whether you like it or not so get used to it now infidel and it wont be such a shock later, its better for you that you roll over and accept it ,,dont make us do to you what we did to Constantinople ,that took alot of clearing up afterwards and you know how much we hate clearing up your blood

Sholto - thanks for opening this debate, I think it is clear that concensus of opinion is that Sharia Law sucks farts from swans.

I totally agree with Ex Muslim. Let us take a look at the "scientific Islam" as stipulated by Allah in the Quoran:

1. The earth is flat
2. The sun revolves around the earth;
3. The sun set on the lake on earth;
4. Semen comes from man's backbone and ribs;
5. Cow's milk comes from its excrement;
6. Meteors and stars are missiles fired at eavesdropping satans and jinns who seek to listen to the reading of Quoran in Heaven;
7. Jinns (satans), were forced to work for Solomon to build Palaces, Temples;

AND there are numerous other gibberish "scientific facts" that Allah has written down in the Quoran.

I think I'll stick with English Law. It might not be perfect but it's based on humanist principles rather than the mystical words of some supposed deity or prophet. Rowan Williams giving a nod to Sharia law doesn't really cut it. For you to dismiss Saudi Arabia, one of the leading and most powerful of proponents of Sharia law, with a 'notorious' kind of misses the point. That is how Sharia Law can be applied and I for one have no wish to risk seeing any part of that gain a foothold.

Right, so sharia is OK. And so is Leviticus (http://tinyurl.com/2wh467x), so hurrah for theocracy. And BTW apartheid was much misunderstood: all it wanted was equality in a multicultural society. And Stalin was a doting father, Pol Pot wanted the best for Cambodia, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have their good points. Oh, and the New Statesman actually stands for quite liberal values . . .

Des Demona: thank you for that welcome note of levity (and I suppose profanity too). Yes, I believe a consensus could be said to be emerging! I'm just about to post an interim response on the site, but thanks again in the meantime.