The Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his decision to speak on Sharia law, saying it is right to air the concerns of faith communities.
Dr Rowan Williams told the general synod although he felt some remarks had been taken out of context, he took responsibility for any confusion.

He was clarifying earlier comments in which he implied adopting aspects of Sharia in the UK was "unavoidable".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has praised Dr Williams' "great integrity".

Dr Williams told clergy at the Church of England synod in Westminster he believed "some of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said".

"But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview and for any misleading choice of words that's helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large, and especially among my fellow Christians.''

He went on to say he did not regret addressing the issue of Sharia law.

"I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities, and to try and bring them into better public focus."

Part of the "burden and the privilege of being the Church" in the UK meant the clergy needed "some coherent voice on behalf of all the faith communities living here", he said.

He added: "If we can attempt to speak for the liberties and consciences of others in this country - as well as our own - we shall, I believe, be doing something we as a church are called to do in Christ's name: witnessing to his Lordship, not compromising it. "

Dr Williams sparked a major row after saying, in a BBC Radio 4 interview last week, that the adoption of parts of Sharia law was "unavoidable" in Britain.

He has insisted he was not advocating a parallel set of laws, but has faced calls for his resignation.

Earlier the prime minister's spokesman said Mr Brown understood "the difficulties" the archbishop was facing and paid tribute to Dr Williams's "dedication to public and community service".

Mr Brown believed religious law should be subservient to UK law, he added.

If he wasn't advocating a parellel set of laws why is he failing to tell us exactly what he did mean to say?

the full text of his original speech is available online - i don't think he's hiding what he said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs...02_08_islam.pdf

Now thats just a bit too much like hard work.. :P

I'd rather let the media sensationalise it for me so I can make my misinformed decision..

:lmaao: they've basically taken 1 sentence of an 8 page document and blown it out of proportion. i've just skim read it and i don't understand all of that document - it's based on theological principles. I don't necessarily agree with what he's saying, but I think that it's been taken out of context and out of the arguments he was using to back it up..... :unsure:

I might actually read that later as I am curious as to watch he actually did say and mean..

If he is saying that adopting Sharia Law is unavoidable then is that not saying that it will eventually happen? And we will eventually have two parallel sets of law?

he's not just talking about sharia law really - he's talking about cultural relativism and whether religious law (not just Islamic law) should have a role to play. You see I disagree with the idea of cultural relativism, but his point is a lot more sensible and logical than it's being made out in the press......

the further the law steps away from any religion is fandabbydozy by me.

I agree and I disagree with Williams, but the hysteria around his comments and the calls for his resignation border on insane. I don't see a problem with having a discussion around the issue and to talk about some of the things that he's brought up. His aim was simply to bring out some of the issues around the idea - the theological ideas around legal systems, the suggestion that he should resign for having an opinion just seems mad......

I read it and they sure have :rolleyes:

I'm a big fan of Rowan Williams actually, I think he makes a lot of sense and is very intelligent and articulate, much more use than previous Archbishops have been. :clap: He hasn't said ANYTHING out of order at all, he's just talkign theological and judicial theory and the problem of plural societies with their laws and recognising religious laws of their members too. It's hard to balance respect for other sytems of beleif and and manage human rights, and he's put forward and interestrign anf thought provokign argument is you ask me.

Honestly, the press! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It's utterly rridiculous. He hasn't said anything bad as you say. it's a debate. And as the Jewish legal expert says it's hard for people in religious minorites because they face losing acceptance in the culture v losing human rights. Very tough.

In a way I think a lot of the outcry is a backlash against us having other cultures thrust upon us. Britain is generally very accepting and laid back, hence everyone coming here! But I know there are a lot of people who feel enough is enough, there has to be a line drawn before Britain loses it's identity. If people want to abide by these other laws then they know where to go, we should not have to entertain it.
I have nothing personally against people from other minorities, backgrounds etc. What I dislike is the bending over backwards so they can practice their beliefs here. Surely they should meet us halfway in fitting in with ours.

Rowan Williams is in trouble because he stated that Sharia law was ‘unavoidable’ and was not an ‘alien and rival system’ to current English law.
There seems to be a lot of talk that this is all tabloid hyperbally-for once it’s far from that.
He also does not realise the Muslims in this country who do not want Sharia to be recognised
currently rely on English law to protect them-eg Muslim women are treated as second class
citizens-’honour killings’ for example.
On his website he claims that there are overlapping jurisdiction regarding Jewish and English law
and that Jews can choose, but there is no such ‘overlapping’ Jewish law is not accepted in this country
he’s just factually wrong on that.
I think there’s a danger in the UK of liberalism eating itself, in other words there is a growing
hyper tolerance which undermines the values of liberalism, being liberal does not mean accepting
anything culturally or morally, it means providing a framework of tolerance-but within boundaries.

Williams would be better off defending Dr Nazir-Ali (Bishop of Rochester) who has received death threats for
daring to talk about ‘no go areas’ in relation to Christion practice in Muslim areas.
I’m not Christian but i find the Ach Bishops remarks dangerous and misguided.

I don't agree with what Rowan Williams has said simply because I think we should have one legal system for everyone, and that I disagree with ideas of cultural relativism. However, I do think the press has blown this out of all proportion - demanding his resignation, saying he's unfit for his role etc etc. He made an eloquent and fairly well researched argument and made the mistake of including this sentence:

I might think he's plain wrong - but I don't think he should resign for saying it. I think he should listen to, and accept the criticm of his argument and have some discussions about the true nature of Sharia law, but I certainly don't think he should resign.

Basically you want him to repent DJ ;)
The problem is not that he said or thought the words, but that he believes them.
At a time when a bishop of the church of England are having death threats, to have someone speak in such pro Sharia terms is a real slap in the face.

The thing is I think he does realise the negative sides of Sharia law - in his speech his gives examples. So i don't think he's going in to it blind, but he seems to gloss over the negatives and suggest that there are "some" positives to sharia law. The thing is he's not wrong in saying that there are already some concessions made (I think under Sharia Law) to Muslims with regard to banking and mortgages and things like that, and there are already "informal" Sharia family courts in the country - so there is a need for a discussion about it. And hopefully this will actually spark that discussion - there's been some interesting pieces in both The Guardian and The Independent in the last couple of days about it :ok:

i suspect that what he wanted to discuss was the role of religious law and civil law and how the two could converge and because he was speaking at an event about britain and Islam he chose Sharia law as his "case study" as it were. Which was a bad choice....... :doh:

The state -a liberal state like ours should accommodate minority religious practices as long as they don’t contravene the law of the land-as this country does. But that's a world of difference from changing the law of the land to accommodate those practices or afford them equal status.
The former is the essence of a tolerant, pluralist society. The latter promulgates multiculturalism-a state of affairs in which ethnic or religious groups live parallel existences, detached and remote from each other, this leads to dis-harmony-this lack of integration is already a fact of british life.

The main reason why there has been such outrage is that British society is already bending over backward with the Government’s tacit or even explicit approval. WimbledonAce put it well in a post before my own when he mentioned ' other cultures thrust upon us'.
Bigamy for example, is a crime, the state is effectively endorsing polygamy by paying welfare benefits to the multiple wives of British Muslim men.
Gordon Brown has said he wants Britain to become the centre of global Islamic banking; Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states are buying up more and more British and Western companies, and we now have ‘Sharia-compliant’ mortgages.
The imam of an Oxford mosque wants to broadcast an amplified call to prayer three times a day on the grounds that this is merely ‘the same as hearing church bells’, this would be a potentially a profound cultural shift if it did ever happen.
There are apparently Sharia courts are dealing with Muslim criminals outside the criminal law; one reported case involved a gang of Somali youths who were allowed to go free after paying compensation to a teenager they had stabbed, with the police and courts apparently looking the other way-this is the unacceptable face of multi culturalism.
As i said people are beside themselves about all this. So when the Archbishop appeared to be endorsing Sharia and calling for more, it's not surprising that people were pissed off-to say the least.
If anything we have to remember those British Muslims who do not want a change in the law-they are protected because they exist under the umbrella of current British law.

It's not very complicated in theory.

The Law of the land is the law of England and Wales - there is scope for members of minority groups to seek voluntarily to abitrate civil law disputes between them according to "courts" set up within their own belief system.

There are already Shariah Courts and the Beth Din for orthodox Jews in the UK.

The UK Courts will recognise and enforce awards from these Courts provided that the parties have voluntarily submitted to them and that they do not involve enforcing rules applicable in those Courts that are against the fundamental law or legal policy of England and Wales.

If that is what Rowan Williams was getting at, fine.

It is an obvious no-no to have different criminal laws or anti-discrimination laws depending upon faith. People of 'faith' are permitted to practise their faith, but when their practice of their faith requires others to accept it IMHO the boundary has been crossed.

I also think that 'faith' is an entirely different matter to race - I can believe and say that all Christians, Muslims, and Jews are deluded and dangerous because of their beliefs - I cannot say the same about all Blacks or all Chinese people.

I leave with two points:

1. The devil is in the detail - Shariah law courts treat the evidence of men and women differently, do we want our courts to enforce decisions reached by Shariah Courts on the basis of evidential rules that are an anathema to us? The rules about divorce and families (an area identified by Williams as a possibility for religious courts) are very different too. My concern is that by having courts in such areas you give an added power to 'elders' in a community to require the young to conform, a refusal to accept the Shariah Court may result in ostracism from the community such that acceptance is not really 'voluntary' in any meaning of the word. However, I don't see any reason why, with appropriate safeguards, some commercial arbitrations cannot be conducted in religious courts.

2. Those who expressed 'outrage' on the basis that the Archbishop was appearing to support parallel criminal law systems with stonings and cutting off hands reveal themselves for what they are in truth: (i) Stupid and/or ignorant - to know anything about the man you know he would never support such a thing; (ii) bigotted and unwilling to engage or discuss in this area. There is a debate to be had, and from what I understand of the details I don't agree with much of what he was saying, but I think that the response to his comments has absolutely shamed our society, I am embarrassed.

One more point - in the field of crime the police often need a complainant to give evidence to get a case off the ground. If a complainant believes that he or she has been vindicated because of some quasi-judicial tribunal's decision that the criminal has accepted, there is not a great deal that the police can do.

That can seem very sensible in practice in some cases, but I would agree with Big-Todger that if it is widespread and a practice develops of letting such communities sort it out in their own way we are all off to hell in a handcart. That is the unacceptable side of intellectually lazy multiculturalism.

this is the speech the Archbishop made to the General Synod which seems to explain his views a bit more clearly:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7239567.stm

He should DEFINITELY not be forced to resign. As you say he is opening up a discussion and it needs to be opened up. The issue of cultural v state loyalty is indeed a tough place to be and it needs to be addressed and talked about. I just can't see what is wrong with that, and if this country force him to resign because of that then we are being as narrow minded and anti-freedom and rights as some of these religious laws he is talking about.

Yes it does.

This is interesting - a collection of views on having a religious legal system alongside our own.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234422.stm

Gohir, Govt Adviser on Muslim Women's comments are especially interesting. She says

"If the Jewish community have a choice to operate their own courts in the UK, it is not surprising that Muslims are now asking for Sharia courts too. So perhaps this debate should also include whether any form of religious arbitration should be allowed. "

Well yes exactly :ok:

She also says many Muslims are likely to be against Sharia and that the majoirty (60%) do not want Sharia courts. So we are making assumptions here which IMO shows that we really do need to discuss this as we don't even seem to understand religious minorities and what they actually want in the first place!

"Many Muslims are likely to be against Sharia because the interpretation and implementation... varies throughout the Islamic world. As Muslims in the UK are from across the world and therefore very diverse, it is unlikely all Muslims would ever agree to a single interpretation or implementation."

Again we seem in this country to stupidly take the assumption that all Muslims want and beleive the same and fail to appreciate that Islam has numerous interpretations.

"What's more, I think it is unlikely that women would be included in any arbitration council. Although Islam gives women numerous Islamic rights, many Muslim women would fear discrimination due to patriarchal and cultural reasons. Muslims, particularly women may be pressurised by families and communities into using Sharia courts."

This issue of pressure is what really concerns me because if a person does not co-operate by accepting the cultural or religious way of resolving a dispute and says that they will let it be decided by the British legal system, then all hell is going to break loose for them and their safety may be under threat and their culture may reject them. We've been trying to prevent this problem for years, through work with race realtions and cultural integration organisations. We do this because we have a system of rights, laws and moral codes and they live in this country so we apply it them also as we should. I now fear that giving minorities the right to use their own legal system will give rise to more problems for members fo these minorities that respect our law and wish to be treated equally under it. And that is one good thing about one law, everyone is treated as EQUAL under it.

And her comments on women are spot on, that is a major concern indeed and ti would be hypocritcal of us to allow courts to be set up that did not follow our basic principles of equality.

As has already been said by many posters, Rowan Williams has been subjected to a typical British press frenzy. Pathetic from the media.

Firstly, I find Rowan Williams to be an intellligent, reasoned and open minded individual. His comments evidently do not mean that the floodgates will be opened to some of the more controversial aspects of Sharia law - no, as Dr Butler puts it, hands being chopped off. Not all crimes under Sharia law result in some form of corporal punishment, either!

I don't think it's unreasonable for Williams to open a debate as to whether in today's multicultural society we should be open to considering (not necessarily praciticing) some aspects of different laws when looking to address some issues e.g. the referenced property or marital disputes...or whether one legal system is the safest way of running a country.

However, the media have overlooked all of this and gone straight for the jugular with their usual combination of bigoted comments, scare mongering and ill informed judgmental slogans. The worst offenders being The Mail and The Express - their headlines have been an embarrassment. No one can say anything anymore - does freedom of speech still exist?! :shrug:

Freedom of speech does not exist anymore. Mainly because we have to be so damn politically correct all the time and go around treading on eggshells.

I totally agree with you, great post :ok:

I think it is enbarrassing the way the media jumped over it. I actually read the lecture and could not see what thier issue was. And it was irresponsible of the press to behave in this manner because in doing so they could well have stirred up hatred between Muslims and Christians whihc may have resulted in violence. They must be bored and short on news if they decided to report this!

Tell it like it is WA :lol:

You do have a point though. I do agree with the push to express oneself in a poilitcially responsible manner, considering other folks's freedom and feelings when you speak as I beleive should ALWAYS be the case. I certainly would not like to live in a country where it was acceptable to be any other way. However i do feel that we are being forced to shut up about certain issues in an overly politically correct fashion. Immigration is one such area where if you try and address it you get called racist! Utterly ridiculous, there are practicalites involded and impacts on others to consider. This seems to be a similar thing that our ABOC is experiencing, becuase no one wants to talk about it as it is politically sensitive and involves race and religion. He's spoken very eloquently and fairly too but he still gets flack!

!t's all the media's fault, the Archbishop's remarks were completely misunderstood-a rampant media got it wrong, and the traditionalists in the Church of England had got it in for him anyway...em i think not.

The fact is he had given an interview on radio 4 hours before the lecture, and had said that 'one law for everybody' was 'a bit of a danger' and also mentioned that Sharia law is not an 'alien or rival system' and that some sort of adoption of Sharia was unavoidable. It was this interview that had the phone lines jammed-NOT the media filtering his words, but his own mouth saying precisely what he thought.
The interview on Radio 4 was arranged well in advance-apparently before the lecture was even written-clearly devised to soften up public reaction to the lecture. However in the Radio 4 interview he was more transparent than in the lecture, and let the cat out of the bag in a way that undermines his subsequent
insistence that his words have been misconstrued.
His lecture compounded unequivocally his views. He talked about 'supplementary jurisdictions' and suggested an end to Britain’s ‘legal monopoly’ so that Muslims could choose to be dealt with by English or Sharia law. He also spoke about ‘an alternative to the divorce courts’. This is clear and not as ambiguous as he wanted it to be (would i be cynical in thinking he didn't think the public would get it, but the synod would?)
His naivety regarding Sharia is also shocking, given that he decided to make it the subject of his lecture and interview. He said he was talking about a ‘soft’ kind of sharia. Yes some reformist Muslims may take that view, but what is to stop the more draconian provisions being enacted here? Aspects or Sharia are at odds with British justice-and many entirely irreconcilable-does he actually know this?
His remarks will be devastating to Christians in places like Sudan and Nigeria etc who are being attacked, persecuted and killed by enforcers of sharia law. By proposing sharia law in Britain, he has both betrayed his besieged flock worldwide.
The Arch Bishops remarks are not ambiguous, and certainly not as ambiguous as he cynically assumed, the public's hostility is entirely justified,
and the man should either jump or be pushed.

I'm not going to go too much in depth here but I do fall more on the side of BT.

One thing for me is his comment that adoption of Sharia Law is "unavoidable". Whether he meant it to or not, surely all we can take from that is that he means it is unavoidable in the sense that it has to happen. By saying that is he not saying that it is something to be considered and in the long run, eventually happening? The fact that he is opening it up for debate is wrong in my view, it shouldn't even be considered as an option to have two parellel laws running alongside one another in this country.
We are not an Islamic country so why should that thought even be considered. Whether it is a "soft" Sharia law that is "unavoidable" or not.
I hope I am not sounding a tad bigotted here, maybe I AM misunderstanding the whole issue due to the media but I like to think that I can make my own judgement about his choice of words and for me, what he said was fundamentally wrong.
it is avoidable and so it should be.

May I add, I don't think this is what he was advocating..

Exactly, it would be nonsense to even think about having their laws here. I think some people have forgotton that this is Britain. They need to live by our laws and if they don't like it go home. We are so weak as a nation it is embarrassing.

The thing is though, rightly or wrongly, we have a system of Jewish Orthodox law in operation already with its' own courts, the Beth Din. Have been there for years. And that itself kind of makes this 'unavoidable' in a sense because in fairness how can you allow one to do it and not the other? :shrug: Just a thought.

Fair comment but then what will we do about the Jewish courts that already exist? Shut them down?

I knew nothing of this before now, no need to I guess but, this description

doesn't seem to me to be as strong as a comment about another law running parallel to our current law.

No the Beth Din doesn't run alongside normal laws as such but then what many people are saying is that Sharia law could run in the same way as the Beth Din. And my interpretation of what Williams said was similar to that - there's a section in there that talks about the benefits of use for civil and business arbitration I think. It's still part of the law at the end of the day no matter how minro ti might seem, and the point i was tryign to make was that is Jewish Orthodox are allowed these then we can't really tell Sharia or any other religious group that they can't have the same.

Did you read what the lady who is Govt Advisor on Muslim Women said? I posted it above, it was interesting. She said that if we had the Beth Din then peopel were bound to call for Sharia law, but actually 60% of Muslims don't want it anyway and they'd never agree if they did becuase it is open to so many varitions of interpretation and implementation..

I just think that given the current climate and views taken by certain people who claim to represent Islam then, (I'm not putting every Muslim in the same box here, please nobody think I am) we as a country should not think about introducing anything other than what we currently have. As I understand it, (from a quick read may I add) the Beth Din has been in place for centuries, fair enough, but I see no current need though, and as you have just said %60 of Muslims don't see a need to introduce anything else. Be that Sharia Law or whatever else. Any law that is based around and upon the teachings of a certain religion need not be introduced into today's Britain. To the people that think it would be a good idea I ask why, for needs other than religion, and when it comes down to it, if people do think this is needed then why live in a country in the first place where that law is not in practice?
That is why i don't think Dr Williams should be making comments like he did, and again I come down to the "unavoidable" comment in the first place.

Well I don't object to what he said, it's sparked a very interestign debate anyway and I think it is helpful. But if people don't liek what eh said then fair enough. I just think eh got jumpedd all over in ridiculous fashion, that's my view :)

My main concern about having these cultural or religious laws is for the protection of those from that cultural ro religious group, i.e. the pressure they may experince cultrually to go to a Sharia court rather than a British law court and the repercusiions for them if they choose British. We've already had incidents of women being burned and murdered in the UK for similar reasons and we don't want more of that. It's a very tricky area, people can find arguements for and against but if it did happen that woudl be one of my practical rather than theoretical concerns, along with the status of women in the Sharia as they would not get equality and my principles cannto allow that..

The Sharia law is actually borrowed from the Torah (Jewish law). The Jews and Muslims do not follow it to the letter apart from some extremists. Jesus said that he came to add to those laws not to take anything from them, so as Christians we should in theory follow them as well. I don't find anything shoking in what Williams said, I actually like it when people speak their mind...whether I agree or not.

Jewish religious courts, like sharia courts, deal with such issues as dispute arbitration, family issues, marriage and divorce.
However Jewish courts have never sought official legal recognition of their rulings, and they are not recognised under English law. their resolution of events is entirely voluntary-and not legally binding in this country.
The religious events ie marriage and divorce have absolutely no legal status ; It's only when Jews marry in the normal way that there is any legal state countenance given to the marriage. If we were merely talking about these informal proceedings then fine, that's NOT what Williams is talking about.
The crucial difference is that Muslims want their rulings to be accepted by the state as having the same legal authority as English law and Williams is endorsing this. This breaks the fundamental precept that Jews have always acknowledged that as a minority they live under the law of the land and do not seek to change it to accommodate them.
It also creates a kind of paradox in that a child can be both legitimate and illegitimate-divorce accepted in English law, but not in a Jewish court-this is a kind of dogs dinner, but nothing to accepting hard religious doctrine and practice as law.

Yes so do I :)

Ahh the Torah! Total aside but I know quite a lot about kosher food preparation and I even used to be to officer inc aharge of El Al for their customs duites on food imports and exports tax reliefs. The chef used to prepare food whilst listenign to the Torah on his walkman, it was funny cos I had to shotu at him a lot. H eused to have to listen to and repeat certain parts during fodo prep. And it was the cleanest most particular kitchen I ever saw in my life. They had to soak lettuce for hours in water becuase it might contain bugs and they were not kosher :lol: And they had special versions of margerine and the likes. I used to love going there becuase they fed me smoked salmon and their vegetable were lovely from markets up Golders Green. Amazing how good the taste was of even the simplest of foods. And may I add they used to treat me like royalty and offer me gin and tonic form the airline trolley in the morning! :o :D Of course it was rude to not accept it. :lol: I was never allowed to inspect the planes though because I wasn't an Israeli national. They were very strict on security. Sorry to deviate but you just reminded me of a place i used to like to go. Great people they were :D

Oh funny!

I was a member of one Goldens Green tennis club....8/9 years ago. Great club and very nice people too.