Sharia

A decade ago, the term 'Sharia' would probably have meant nothignt o a majority of the population of this island and much the same could be said of Britain. Regualr media coverage has changed this and Islam is rarely out of the news.

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a lecture on Islam in English Law and addressed issues that are central to the practice and theory of politics on all of the continents. He closed his lecture with the words, 'Theology still waits for us around the corner of these debates.' The quesiton concerns the meaning of Sharia Law for muslims. There is the perception that Muslims are answerable to Sharia before the Law of the land. There is also the impression that Islam isistis on the replacement of secular laws by the Sharia system.

Archbishop Williams asked if secular law needs to accommodate some of the religious ordinances of faith communities. This caused a storm of debate across the U.K. and indeed elsewhere. The law in England already incorporates the canon law of the Church of England as regards Church property and appointments. There is also an accomodation of Jewish law in the civil recognition of the findings of a Ben Dith, a court to which Jewish men and women may have recourse on certain matters of marriage and family law. Indeed there is already an accommodation of Sharia law itself, in the availability now of a mortgage and investments system designed in view of Sharia's prohibiyion of the taking of interest on a loan.

Sharia for a muslim is God's will and it encompasses all of the believer's duties to God and humanity and humanity's abode, and it is the standard by which everything human is judged. It's sources are acknoweldged by all muslims to be in the Koran and the Sunna which is the name for the pattern of life as well as the teaching fo the prophet, access to which is by way of authentic and authoritative 'report' (hadith).

Ali Selim, General Secretary to the Irish Council of Imams, called for the commitment of Church leaders to the creation, as a matter of urgency, of 'sound inter-faith relations'. The appointment of Archbishop Brady to the College of Cardinals, he wrote, 'renowned for his personal integrity, kindness, goodness and his hand of friendship across communities, could provide a new avenue in this context.'and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, by visiting the Islamic Cultural Centre at Clonskeagh, 'has set an example of a new type of visit which can serve the process of strenghtening inter-faith relations. Selim identifies difficulties in first and second level education systems in Ireland as they present 'challenges and difficulties' for Muslims in Ireland. He welcomed, as can be expected, Ireland's creation of a multi-faith school under Jewish, Catholic and Muslim patronage in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.