Whose law counts most?

Finding an accommodation between Islamic law and Western legal codes is difficult. But there are some ways forward
The Economist
Oct 14th 2010

ANY Western politician, judge or religious leader desiring instant fame or a dose of controversy has an easy option. All you need do is say “sharia” in public.

Sharron Angle, a Republican candidate for the Senate, proved the point when she suggested that Frankford, Texas, and Dearborn, Michigan, were both subject to a sharia regime, as a result of the “militant terrorist situation” that existed in those places. Critics retorted that Frankford, after its absorption by Dallas, no longer existed as an administrative unit. Dearborn’s mayor, Jack O’Reilly, tartly told her that his town’s 60 churches and seven mosques were flourishing happily under American jurisdiction. But for some tea party fans, she was guilty at worst of slight exaggeration.

Less weirdly, but just as controversially, Archbishop Rowan Williams, leader of the world’s 80m Anglicans, will never be allowed to forget saying in February 2008 that some accommodation between British law and sharia was “inevitable”. Lord Phillips, then England’s senior judge, drew equal ire by adding that sharia-based mediation could have some role as long as national law held primacy.

It is easy to see why the word sharia has emotional overtones, especially today. The appalled reaction to the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, an Iranian woman who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, has stoked a global campaign for her acquittal. The sentence was suspended last month, but her fate looks dicey. She could still face execution on a murder charge. the rest

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