Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that “the law of the Church of England is the law of the land” there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and doctrine. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Shariah in the New York Times
Noah Feldman wrote an interesting article on the origin of Shariah in Muslim cultures. I found the lengthy article interesting and full of information I was unaware of. I thought I would pass it along.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This world is, indeed, a maundering mound of man. Talk, day in and day out, you fools! but don't, never use your mind; for all the world will then become a silent state and then you will not find anything to talk about, criticise and rattle, and your leaders, that with Mercedes move about will not find anything to put in their pockets.
Yes, you can cry about the church and shariah - the useless stuff, those who have brought the world to its present condition but you don't have a soul to see the hordes of crying children that the money-minded and evil state-machinery have made lame and parentless and foodless and educationless and peaceless and houseless. No, you can't for who will then watch those football matches, see the swaying breasts of those models who walk the ramps.
Are you not human? Are not they who reside in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Open your minds, see the whole fabric.
The rulers, from the distant past had been using religion, lanuage, class and culture as a means of dividing people and demolishing the inherent humaneness that humans possess. For, otherwise their chairs won't last long.
Brothers, the only truth is the truth that we are humans. Humanity is the true religion.
If you think otherwise, have a look at my blog.Click Here
Even The Economist waded in on this one! They advocated that there should be more of a separation of church and state in Britain. (There should be!)
Their take on it was that the law should not provide for endless special cases, but that by separating religion from government, it was possible to apply one, secular, law evenly across all communities!
Canada enforced this idea a year or two ago; someone sued, saying that they should be able to apply Sharia in (if memory serves) a family dispute. The Canadian Supreme Court basically said "You've got to be kidding. You're in Canada, Canadian law applies!"
Carolyn Ann
Post a Comment