At our last Awareness stall in the city centre, I encountered a very concerned visitor, who posed a very direct question: ‘Tell me which is sovereign; British Law or the Sharia Law?’
I’m sure I looked at him as though I had been just waiting for this moment. His was a very genuine concern and misunderstanding about the whole issue, and I welcomed the chance to allay his misplaced fears:
Let us be clear and frank, without fear or fright, about this issue. Sharia, as a system of beliefs and practice, will always remain with Muslims wherever they live. This is also true for all people of faiths and no faith, and their systems of law. Such systems of law safeguard the personal and private aspects of religious practices, like birth, marriage, funerals etc., and the rituals of their religions.
From an Islamic perspective, the Creator is the lawgiver. His laws govern the cosmos and all that exists in it. Human society is not excluded from this. No one can take that right away from the Creator.
God, the Creator, shows a path for the law to follow, that, according to the Quran, ‘gives life’, and is the law’s ultimate purpose. God creates the rulers who govern their nations; whether they believe in Him or not. Indeed many take their oaths of office in His name. God demands that people should be treated with justice and fairness. The prophet Muhammad said: ‘The best among people is the one who is most beneficial to them’.
The emphasis of Sharia Law is on justice, fair dealing, human rights and equal access to opportunities, while tyranny and oppression continue to be the ugliest aspects of human rules. God demands ethics and virtues in human behaviour and rejects that which would exploit the weaker in the society.
I said to my visitor: ‘it is the British law which is sovereign in Britain, and no one should have the least doubt about it.’
What??? By the expression on his face, and his obvious consternation, he expected me to say it was the Sharia law, which it obviously is not. Nor, I continued, are Muslims seeking to implement it in the UK, or to make it the sovereign law of the country. Indeed, Sharia can only be implemented by Muslim rulers in Muslim societies.
I continue to find it surprising that people in the wider community are provoked into such an extreme response when confronted with the opportunistic claims of some fringe Muslim Groups demanding that Sharia law be introduced in this country.
Why do these Muslim fringe groups continue to make provocative demands for the implementation of Sharia law in this country, where the majority of the population are not members of the Islamic Faith? Why not implement all aspects of the Sharia law in their own lives and provide an exemplary example for other people to follow?
While I recognise that these demands are a purely political ploy by these groups, it can never be right to introduce politics into religion, particularly Islam, which is already greatly misunderstood and regarded by many as on trial.
More importantly, why do the people of this country continue to fall victim to the misapprehension engendered by the misleading and opportunistic demands of these groups? Are they gullible or just plain frightened?
I told my visitor that gaining knowledge of, and understanding Islam, will dissipate any such fear of Islam and Sharia, and that the claims of the groups that generated it will finally be seen for what they are.
My visitor, after further, now cheerful, conversation, took some of our booklets and leaflets on Islam and went happily on his way.
