Sharia councils operating in Britain should be regulated, with judges required to meet strict qualifications, experience and competence tests comparable to those for mainstream courts, the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) told the Gazette this week.


Speaking after the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered his controversial speech last week, in which he said introducing aspects of Sharia law into the British legal system was 'unavoidable', Mahmud Al-Rashid, AML spokesman and barrister at 6 Kings Bench Walk, said regulation would lead to improvements.



He said: 'Sharia councils need to be formalised so they can be regulated and improved. Whenever anything operates that isn't transparent there are always problems... people may not know the degree of competence of certain councils, as there is no way of standardising at the moment.'



While regulation of existing courts would bring benefits, Mr Al-Rashid cautioned that the UK Muslim ?community had not been agitating for the introduction of Sharia. He was surprised by Dr Rowan Williams' decision to raise the issue now, as 'it is an internal debate Muslims need to have first'.



He also warned: 'I would want the experts in this country who understand the context, history and culture particular to our society here to develop the Sharia that way. It is not a fixed rule to be imported from another country... Muslims here are not of one view as to whether it is a good thing.'



Mr Al-Rashid stressed that Sharia laws would not supersede English law. He said the debate was more about whether 'English law should lend more credibility to Sharia'. As to concerns about whether women would be disadvantaged in Sharia courts, he pointed out that all legal systems are required to support vulnerable people.



Professor Tariq Ramadan, a leading Muslim academic and theologian, underlined that the British legal system was not at odds with being Sharia-compliant: 'The Islamic system is flexible... I really see no need for something that is different from what we have now.'



However, Professor Ramadan warned that scholars do not agree on what constitutes Sharia and that intellectuals, lawyers and the community would need to closely examine what would enable people 'to be fully British and fully Muslim'.



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Anita Rice