Shari’a Councils and Muslim Women in Britain: Rethinking the Role of Power and Authority

230 Pages·2017·0.992 MB·English

by  Tanya Walker

Shariʿa Councils and Muslim Women in Britain
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Muslim Minorities
Editorial Board
Jørgen S. Nielsen (University of Copenhagen)
Aminah McCloud (DePaul University, Chicago)
Jörn Thielmann (Erlangen University)
Volume 22
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mumi
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Shariʿa Councils and Muslim
Women in Britain
Rethinking the Role of Power and Authority
By
Tanya Walker
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Cover illustration: Arab woman with black veil. © Photographee.eu – File #73843408 – stock.adobe.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walker, Tanya, author.
Title: Sharia councils and Muslim women in Britain : rethinking the role of
power and authority / by Tanya Walker.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Muslim minorities ;
volume 22 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016036670 (print) | LCCN 2016043013 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004316089 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004331365 (E-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Islamic courts--Great Britain. | Muslim women--Legal status,
laws, etc.--Great Britain. | Muslim women--Great Britain--Social
conditions.
Classification: LCC KD8804 .W35 2017 (print) | LCC KD8804 (ebook) | DDC
342.4108/78--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036670
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1570-7571
isbn 978-90-04-31608-9 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-33136-5 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
The Muslim Presence in Britain 6
Responses of the State 12
Answering the ‘Why?’ Question 22
Some Theoretical Considerations: Authority, Power, Freedom
and the Self 29
Organisation of Book 41
1 The Shariʿa Councils, the Women and Some Methodological
Concerns 44
Introducing the Shariʿa Councils 44
Research Sample 44
The Islamic Shariʿa Council (isc) 46
The Birmingham Shariʿa Council (bsc) 48
The Family and Social Affairs Department of the Islamic Centre of
England (ice) 49
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (mat) 51
Using the Terms ‘Shariʿa Council’, ‘Judges’ and ‘Islamic
divorce’ 54
The Procedure of Obtaining a ‘Religious’ Divorce 56
Introducing the Women 56
Research Sample 56
Profile of the Women 58
Methodological Concerns 60
Research Methods 60
Considering the Researcher in the Field 62
Ethical Considerations 63
Limitations of Study 65
2 The Question of Authority 70
The Complexity of Responses 70
The Public and the Hidden Transcript 75
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vi contents
Religion and the Reasoned Consideration of Legitimacy 82
The Centrality of Knowledge 87
Authority Reconsidered 92
3 The Women in Context: The Web of Power 98
The Women and Their Social Field: Community and Power 100
The Provisions of Islamic Law: Talaq, Khulʿ and Litigious
Divorces 110
The Impact of Law on Power in Relationships 122
Interactions with the Civil Law 127
The Field of Possible Action 137
4 Tactics of Power 139
The Decision to Use the Shariʿa Councils: A Particular Logic 140
The Efficacy of Women’s Use of Shariʿa Councils as a Tactic
of Power: Are Patriarchal Bargains Successful? 151
Shariʿa Councils and the Claim to Safeguard Women’s Rights 159
Conclusion 187
Bibliography 203
Index 218
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Acknowledgements
This book has been made possible by the kind and generous help of a commu-
nity of people. First, my thanks to the supervisor of the original PhD thesis on
which this book is based, Professor Salwa Ismail, for her nuanced insight and
guidance which have been invaluable. Special thanks too to Professor Laleh
Khalili for being a consistent source of encouragement and support, and to
Professor Werner Menski who was quick to welcome me, across departments,
into his law group, and to allow a very welcome space to develop the begin-
nings of the research that led to this book.
This book would not have been possible without the willingness of indi-
viduals associated with the Birmingham Shariʿa Council, Family Affairs De-
partment of the Islamic Centre of England, the Family Affairs Committee, the
Islamic Shariʿa Council, and the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal to be observed
and interviewed. I am grateful to all those who gave generously of their time.
Also, a very special ‘thank you’ to the women who, having brought their case to
one of the councils in this study, gave me the privilege of interviewing them.
I would like to extend my thanks to the team at Brill, and in particular
Nienke Brienen, for their invaluable help, guidance and reassurance along the
road to publication.
Thank you to my colleagues at the Zacharias Trust in Europe, and globally,
for being an inspirational community of people who live with humility, integ-
rity and excellence. Thank you for allowing me space to complete the writing
of this book.
Thank you to my family who have steadfastly supported and encouraged me
not only in this project, but in every project and every challenge of my life. I am
so grateful for each of you.
Finally, my biggest thank you to you Toby, for being a constant source of
strength and stability, for believing in me and pushing me on even when my
own belief and energies have failed, and for being willing to take a heavier load,
so that I can pursue dreams. I could not have walked this journey without you.
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List of Abbreviations
bsc Birmingham Shariʿa Council
fac Family Affairs Committee
ice Family Affairs Department of the Islamic Centre of England
ikwro Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation
isc Islamic Shariʿa Council
mat Muslim Arbitration Tribunal
mlsc Muslim Law (Shariʿa) Council
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Introduction
Certain events at the beginnings of this new century have dramatically and
indelibly altered the world stage and a global public consciousness, although
the decade and more that has passed since the events of September 11 show
that we are dealing with a fast changing and increasingly complex landscape.
A heightened focus on the ‘Muslim presence’ in the West has been but one
of the resultant effects. Whilst large-scale security concerns have taken pride
of place, dominating the media and indeed the public imagination, there has
simultaneously been a less profiled, though equally complex, search for and
redefining of questions of identity, freedom and equality. Many issues have
emerged in the complex arranging and re-arranging of both public and private
space as migrant communities settle in new lands, and as host societies are
forced to adapt in light of the changes that such developments bring. It is how-
ever the heterogeneous, quasi-legal entities that have become broadly defined
as ‘Shariʿa councils’ in Britain that have been amongst the most controversial
of these over the past years,1 and which provide the focus for this present work.
In February 2006 an icm survey conducted for the Sunday Telegraph
(Hennessy and Kite 2006) polled 500 British Muslims on a variety of emotive
issues, but the focus of the headline was a telling precursor of what was to
emerge later in the year with regards to the existence of “a network of Shariʿa
councils in the uk” (Bowen, Innes 2006). The headline ran “Poll reveals 40pc
of Muslims want Shariʿa law in uk” (Hennessy and Kite 2006).2 Nine months
later, on 29 November 2006, the bbc Radio 4 programme Law in Action high-
lighted the issue of alternate “ethnic and religious courts” in Britain. Whilst the
programme was framed in language that considered the use of Jewish, Islamic
and customary law (the case in question was in fact decided according to So-
mali customary law) the media flurry that followed focussed on Islam, with
the Telegraph running a second article: “Shariʿa law is spreading as authority
wanes” (Rozenberg 2006) – a headline that was to shape the beginnings of this
research as it framed the debate in terms of the concept of authority.
1 The unofficial settling of disputes according to variations of Shariʿa law in the United King-
dom is not a new phenomenon (some councils have been running for some thirty years), but
their increasing profile and formality is a more recent development.
2 It is, of course, difficult to ascertain the significance of such a statistic with regards to the
understanding and motivation of respondents (what is understood to be signified by ‘Shariʿa
law’ for example?) Note also that the same poll revealed that whilst 40% of British Muslims
were in favour of the implementation of some form of Shariʿa law, 41% were opposed to any
such move.
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2 Introduction
In the end it was to be the events of 2008 that were to seal the place of
Shariʿa councils on the front lines of British Muslim debates. The lecture given
by the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Williams 2008) at the Royal Courts
of Justice in February of that year sparked months of highly emotive debate
across the nation, culminating with The Sunday Times announcement on
14 September 2008 that the British government had “quietly sanctioned the
powers for Shariʿa judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial
disputes to those involving domestic violence” (Taher 2008). The article went
on to say that the rulings issued by the “Shariʿa courts” are binding by law pro-
vided that “both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their
case”, and that these rulings “are enforceable through the county courts or High
Court.”3 Although there were important factual errors in the press reports,4
the backlash against these announcements, and the extremity of the response
against Dr Williams due to his comments earlier in the year, (the bbc referred
to the Shariʿa debate from that point as the “Shariʿa law row”5), help to demon-
strate the extent of the emotion and controversy attached to the question of
Shariʿa law in the United Kingdom.6
It is by now evident that Shariʿa councils are increasingly carving out a space
for themselves within the British state, but this space is a highly complex and
contested one, both in the public and in the private sphere. Significant ten-
sions surround all aspects of the work and in fact the very existence of the
Shariʿa councils, not only with regards to the interface of these councils with
the official structures of the British state, but also as they are experienced with-
in the Muslim communities of which they are part.
It is these councils, and their interactions with the Muslim women they
claim to serve, that are the focus of this present study. In presenting an ethno-
graphic study of the British case, focused on the reasoning and the motivations
of the individual Muslim women in their interactions with the Shariʿa coun-
cils, and explored through considerations of authority, power, agency and re-
sistance, this book diverges from much of the literature on the Shariʿa councils
3 Although note the subtle rebuttal of their own claims in Pollard (2008).
4 There had been no “government sanction” other than that which was present in existing
legislation that covered arbitration procedures (the Arbitration Act 1996). Furthermore, both
family law (including divorce) and criminal law (including domestic violence) are protected
areas of law and cannot currently be subject to an arbitration agreement.
5 See for example: “Cameron steps into Shariʿa law row” bbc News, 26 February 2008.
6 See Grillo (2015a) for a rich review of the Shariʿa councils and the surrounding controversy as
documented in the press.
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