Fri Feb 8, 2008 7:30am CST

“You are to have the same law for the alien
and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.”
(The Bible, Leviticus 24:22 NIV)

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Written by Gloriscope staff
Photo by Brian G. Bukowski

(Gloriscope.com) – The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has created a big public controversy in Britain with his statement that it is “unavoidable” that parts of the Muslim shariah law would be introduced in Britain, to be recognized by British courts along with British law.

The Archbishop, who is the spiritual leader of the British and worldwide Anglicans, made his controversial position known in a highly visible manner, notably in a lecture in the Royal Courts of Justice.

He seemed to recognize shariah as revelation from God when he said, “”To recognize sharia is to recognize a method of jurisprudence governed by revealed texts rather than a single system.”

Public outcry

The Archbishop’s interview has created an outcry from British politicians, media, legal experts, Christian believers, and other sectors of the public opinion.

The British government quickly distanced itself from the Archbishop’s remarks. A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that “sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law.”

The U.K. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said, “I think there is one law in this country and it is the democratically determined law. That is the law I will uphold and that is the law that is at the heart of values that we share across all communities in this country.”

Former U.K. Home Secretary David Blunkett said introduction of shariah law in Britain would be “catastrophic in terms of social cohesion” in the country. He told BBC Radio 4, “I think this is very dangerous because the Archbishop used the term affiliations.” He explained, “”We have affiliations to football clubs, to cricket teams, to all sorts of things that aren’t central to our citizenship and the acceptance of that in terms of a common society. We don’t have affiliations when it comes to the question of the law.”

“Appeasement of Islamic extremism”

The Daily Telegraph, a leading London daily, called the Archbishop’s statement an “inept intervention.” The paper wrote: “Coming from the senior bishop in the Church of England, it is vulnerable to interpretation as appeasement of Islamic extremism prompted by fear of social unrest. As for timing, the lecture was given shortly after threats had been made against one of Dr Williams’s fellow bishops, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, for writing in the Sunday Telegraph that Islamic extremism had turned some communities into no-go areas for non-Muslims.”

There are about 1.8 million Muslims in the U.K., accounting for 2.7 percent of the population. There have been attempts by parts of the Muslim community to get parts of shariah law recognized in British courts, notably in family and contract matters.

(Photo credit: Brian G. Bukowski (Toronto, Canada) under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0).

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TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!

Published in the U.S.A. Copyright © 4T4C News Corp. 2008. All rights reserved.