| Formation | 1982 [1] |
|---|---|
| Registration no. | 1003855 |
| Purpose | Provision of advice on Islamic principles and law. [2] |
| Headquarters | Leyton, London |
Region served | UK |
| Website | islamic-sharia.org |
The Islamic Sharia Council (ISC) is a British organisation that provides legal rulings and advice to Muslims in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic Sharia based on the four Sunni schools of thought. It primarily handles cases of marriage and divorce and, to a lesser extent, business and finance. [3] Thousands of Muslims have turned to the Council to resolve family and financial issues. [4] The Economist magazine states it has offered rulings to "thousands of troubled families since the 1980s", [5] the council states that it has dealt with an average of between 200 and 300 cases monthly as of January 2012. [4]
The council has no legal authority in the United Kingdom, [3] and cannot enforce any penalties; many Muslims would appear voluntarily to accept the rulings made by the ISC. [4]
The Islamic Sharia Council says it is "devoted to the articulation of classical Islamic principles in a manner that provides a platform for Islam to be the cure of all humanity's ills." [6] According to The Economist magazine its "two main founders come from purist schools of Islam, the Deobandis and the Salafis". [5] A rival service, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, was founded in 2007 by followers of the Barelvi school of South Asian Islam, is reportedly "less strict than the Deobandis" and as of 2010 offered dispute resolution in half a dozen British cities. [5]
Humera Khan, co-founder of the An-Nisa Society, has said that Sharia councils provide an essential service for many Muslims who see Sharia as a sacred reference, and if used voluntarily, may actually lift a burden off state funded services. [7] Lawyer and rabbi Alex Goldberg has also said that banning them would be "counterproductive", as it would "bolster underground councils rather than those who are seeking to work within the English legal framework, and recognise they are subservient to the English law." [7]
In an April 2013 report, the BBC's Panorama asked whether the Islamic Sharia Council was "failing vulnerable women and mothers" by requiring women seeking divorce to give back their marriage dowry (or mahr ). [8] The question of khula divorce often turns on the dower: if the woman is seeking the divorce, she has to return the dower to the man, or else the divorce cannot proceed. Since in traditional Islamic society, men are traditionally the bank account holders and women are traditionally homemakers, the woman has no purchase, and cannot obtain a loan in order to repay the dower to receive an Islamically recognized divorce. The Islamic Sharia Council must recognise a British divorce, by virtue of the law of the land, if the petitioner shows them a decree absolute. However, the Islamic Sharia Council is displeased if the dower remains unpaid. [1]
Writer, broadcaster and academic Myriam Francois-Cerrah has pointed to "serious problems" with the councils, citing a case in which a Muslim woman seeking advice was reportedly directed to a "controversial cleric" who urged her to give up her custody dispute with her husband and "hand over full custody of her seven year old child" to him despite the fact that the husband was a "violent schizophrenic" who had abused her for years. [7]
Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, Shariah is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology sharīʿah refers to immutable, intangible divine law; contrary to fiqh, which refers to its interpretations by Islamic scholars. Sharia, or fiqh as traditionally known, has always been used alongside customary law from the very beginning in Islamic history; has been elaborated and developed over the centuries by legal opinions issued by qualified jurists -reflecting the tendencies of different schools- and integrated and with various economic, penal and administrative laws issued by Muslim rulers; and implemented for centuries by judges in the courts until recent times, when secularism was widely adopted in Islamic societies.
A wife is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment; or until death, depending on the kind of marriage. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow. The rights and obligations of a wife to her partner and her status in the community and law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
The Constitution of Malaysia establishes a right to freedom of religion in Article 11. However, Islam is also established as the state religion of the country in article 3, and article 11 provides for legal restrictions on proselytizing to Muslims. According to Freedom House, the country was scored 1 out of 4 for freedom of religion, with 0 being the worst and 4 being the best, in 2023. Muslims themselves are subject to state enforcement of religious practices; they can be fined by the state for not fasting or praying, may be prohibited from converting, and only Muslims are considered to be ethnically Malay. Other religious communities are a large fraction of the population, while individuals with no religious affiliation are much rarer and can be viewed with hostility.
In Islam, a mahr is the bride wealth obligation, in the form of money, possessions or teaching of verses from the Quran by the groom, to the bride in connection with an Islamic wedding. While the mahr is often money, it can also be anything agreed upon by the bride such as jewelry, home goods, furniture, a dwelling or some land. Mahr is typically specified in the marriage contract signed upon marriage.
In Islamic law (sharia), marriage is a legal and social contract between two individuals. Marriage is an act of Islam and is strongly recommended. Polygyny is permitted in Islam under some conditions, but polyandry is forbidden.
Divorce according to Islamic law can occur in a variety of forms, some initiated by a husband and some by a wife. The main categories of Islamic customary law are talaq (repudiation), khulʿ and faskh. Historically, the rules of divorce were governed by sharia, as interpreted by traditional Islamic jurisprudence, though they differed depending on the legal school, and historical practices sometimes diverged from legal theory.
Nikah 'urfi is a "customary [marriage contract] that commonly requires a walī (guardian) and witnesses but not to be officially registered with state authorities. Couples repeat the words, "We got married" and pledge commitment, although there are many other informal ways in which people marry 'urfi. Usually a paper, stating that the two are married, is written and at least two witnesses sign it, although others may record their commitment on a cassette tape and use other forms of documentation. Most Arab countries do not recognize 'urfi marriages and do not allow partners to get a 'legal' divorce since the government does not recognize the legality of the marriage in the first place. Under the new personal status law (Egypt) passed on January 29, 2000 however, divorces from 'Urfi marriages are now recognized. While the new Egyptian law recognizes the woman's right to seek divorce from an 'Urfi marriage, the law however does not allow for claims for alimony and child support. Unlike regular marriages, most 'urfi contracts are not publicised, are short-term and do not require men to provide maintenance for the women. Sometimes these relationships are a way for people to have sexual relations within what is perceived to be a religiously licit framework. In many instances, 'urfi marriages are contracted without the permission of the woman's male guardian (Wali) and the relationship is often kept secret from family members.
The experiences of Muslim women vary widely between and within different societies due to culture and values that were often predating Islam's introduction to the respective regions of the world. At the same time, their adherence to Islam is a shared factor that affects their lives to a varying degree and gives them a common identity that may serve to bridge the wide cultural, social, and economic differences between Muslim women.
Maryam Namazie is a British-Iranian secularist, communist and human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster. She is the Spokesperson for Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation, One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She is known for speaking out against Islam and Islamism and defending the right to apostasy and blasphemy.
Khulʿ, also called khula, is a procedure based on traditional jurisprudence, that allows a Muslim woman to initiate a divorce by returning the mahr and everything she received from him during their life together, or without returning anything, as agreed by the spouses or judge's decree, depending on the circumstances.
The Gambia is a Muslim majority country, with Muslims constituting 96.4% of the population, some 3.5% are Christian, and 0.1% practice other religions.
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.
A misyar marriage is a type of marriage contract allowed by some Sunni Muslims. The husband and wife thus joined are able to renounce some marital rights such as living together, the wife's rights to housing and maintenance money (nafaqa), and the husband's right to home-keeping and access. The practice is often used in some Islamic countries to give a legal recognition to behavior that might otherwise be considered adulterous via temporary, contractual marriages.
A ban on sharia law is legislation that prohibits the application or implementation of Islamic law (Sharia) in courts in any civil (non-religious) jurisdiction. In the United States for example, various states have "banned Sharia law," or a ballot measure was passed that "prohibits the state’s courts from considering foreign, international or religious law." As of 2014, these include Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee. In the Canadian province of Ontario, family law disputes are arbitrated only under Ontario law.
Myriam François, formerly known as Myriam François-Cerrah, is a British journalist, filmmaker and writer. Her work has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. She is the founder and CEO of production company mpwr productions, which specialises in documentary films centred on minority voices.
The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The sources of Sharia also include Islamic scholarly consensus developed after Muhammad's death. Its interpretation by judges in Saudi Arabia is influenced by the medieval texts of the literalist Hanbali school of Fiqh. Uniquely in the Muslim world, Sharia has been adopted by Saudi Arabia in an uncodified form. This, and the lack of judicial precedent, has resulted in considerable uncertainty in the scope and content of the country's laws. The government therefore announced its intention to codify Sharia in 2010, and, in 2018, a sourcebook of legal principles and precedents was published by the Saudi government. Sharia has also been supplemented by regulations issued by royal decree covering modern issues such as intellectual property and corporate law. Nevertheless, Sharia remains the primary source of law, especially in areas such as criminal, family, commercial and contract law, and the Qur'an and the Sunnah are declared to be the country's constitution. In the areas of land and energy law the extensive proprietorial rights of the Saudi state constitute a significant feature.
Sharia means Islamic law based on Islamic concepts based from Quran and Hadith. Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.
Divorce Iranian Style is a 1998 documentary film directed by Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini which chronicles the legal battles of three Iranian couples as they seek divorce in the Iranian court system. The film documents three couples as they go through the various legal processes and cultural barriers as they seek to file for divorce and highlights the poignant differences of men and women in the court system. The film also shows the complexity of blending religious law with a state run court system.
On 20 July 2016, Samia Shahid, a 28-year-old British Pakistani woman, was found dead in Punjab, Pakistan. Although involved in a dispute with her family, she had travelled to Pakistan alone as she had been told that her father was critically ill. Relatives claimed that she had died of natural causes, whereas her husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazim, believed that she had been murdered in a so-called "honour killing"; an autopsy and forensic examination concluded that she had been raped and strangled.
Triple talaq and talaq-e-mughallazah are now-banned means of Islamic divorce previously available to Muslims in India, especially adherents of Hanafi Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence. A Muslim man could legally divorce his wife by proclaiming three times consecutively the word talaq.
