Anglican Mainstream

From John Richardson

Behind the headlines, such as that in the Times, declaiming that the “Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain” there lies, as one might expect where Rowan Williams is concerned, a much more complex and nuanced position.

In an interview with the BBC, Dr Williams did indeed say that “there is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law.” In this sense, he agreed with the interviewer that “Sharia should have its place.”

But the nature of that accommodation, in Dr Williams’s view, does not seem at all to consist of simply handing over some citizens, or some areas, to Islamic jurisdiction. Rather, the suggestion arises from an attempt, elaborated in a lecture on ‘Civil and Religious Law in England’, to understand the nature of modern society and, within it, the role of law.

Dr Williams’s understanding seems to be this: it is widely assumed (as he stated on the radio) that “the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody.” However, as he points out, many people “have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society.” And it is this which the law needs to take into account.

The idea of there being a ‘legal monopoly’ — whether secular or religious — is a danger to humans both as individuals and in society. Thus, “an approach to law which simply said, ‘There is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or your allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts’” is (he says with typical understatement), “a bit of a danger.”

The suggestion of an ‘accommodation’ with Sharia, therefore, is actually an attempt to preserve fundamental human freedom by denying the ‘monopoly’ which would otherwise marginalise religious faith as finally irrelevant.

Far from undermining British society, the Archbishop is thus attempting to preserve it — albeit in a way which most Britons will find almost incomprehensible.

Yet, oddly enough, his ideas parallel those recently expressed by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in a recent conference titled ‘A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations?’ Much of the programme was given over precisely to questions of religious freedom in modern society and to a consideration of the place of Islam in particular. Read more

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