‘ It’s a man’s right to ’ be obeyed by his wife
responsible for training, direction and discipline if needed.
‘It is an essential right of man over his wife to be obeyed so long as his comments do not conflict or contradict the commands of Allah the Almighty . . . righteous women are devoutly obedient.’
There was even a dire warning for any wife who refuses to accede to her husband’s sexual demands. ‘If a husband calls his wife to his bed but the latter refuses to fulfil the call (for any reason other than a lawful one) which drives the man to be upset with his wife, then the angels will curse such a wife until she gets up in the morning.’
When I asked Mr Subhaalni how these chauvinistic messages squared with his contemporary, British interpretation of sharia, he said that they had been posted by his stand-in, who did not share his interpretation of the Koran, while he was away sick last year.
He has since removed them from the website.
However, there is no doubt some of Britain’s sharia courts hold fast to these ancient beliefs and administer rulings accordingly.
In fairness, when I visited, Mr Subhaalni appeared to handle the steady flow of women who came into the office seeking advice on a variety of family, property inheritance and marital issues (he also conducts religious marriages and even provides an Islamic dating service) with care and professionalism.
Although he charges women £300 for a divorce (male petitioners don’t need to pay a fee), with concessions for refugees and those on benefits, he insists he is ‘a rich man’ from a wealthy family and is not doing it for the money.
He said that he returned to Britain after studying in Pakistan and Egypt and found that sharia councils here ‘ were failing us’. ‘We’d go to mosque and we’d have an imam speaking in Urdu to British-born youngsters who don’t understand what they’re saying and only have links to Pakistan through their grandparents. How can we put these imams in charge of preaching and dispensing the law to the community?’
He bemoaned that fact that British citizenship was not being taught. ‘The first tenet of sharia is that Muslims must comply with the law of the land they live in, so I want to bring our council up to a standard where we can deal within the law.’
He says the services of his council — which has conducted 76 divorces and 46 marriages since December — are in such demand that he hopes to move to bigger premises.
Mr Subhaalni told me: ‘ We’ve made this a hub for everybody [not just Muslims] and do a lot of work in the community.
‘For example, when people come out of prison, we mediate with their families to get them back home. We have a service to stop young people being forced into marriages.’
He contrasts such activities with the Dewsbury sharia council, which he says is woefully out of touch with young British Muslims and is driven by money. ‘It asks for a bank statement before anything else,’ he says, ‘and takes the side of those who can pay.’
Officials in Dewsbury refused to comment on this criticism. Nor would they allow me to witness one of their hearings — which is why it was so fascinating for me to gain access to Birmingham Central Mosque.
Whatever may occur behind the closed doors of other, more secretive sharia courts, here the judges’ compassion was undeniable.
Then again, this court is unique in being chaired by a woman — Dr Amra Bone, an erudite Islamic Studies lecturer thought to be Britain’s only female sharia judge.
THE long- serving court administrator was also a woman, Saba Butt — a rare feminine presence — and the proceedings were being observed by a young lawyer keen to set up what he believes will be the first official sharia council in Manchester.
The women who came before them were pitiable to behold.
One, who had been raised by her non- Islamic grandmother, described in a Brummie accent how her husband had deceived her into marrying him by saying he owned a garage. In fact, he was a former criminal who, she claimed, had sexually abused one of her children.
Disturbingly, one of the elderly male judges still saw fit to ask her whether she might consider returning to live with him. ‘ After the sexual abuse, there is no chance I will let him near my child again,’ she replied, seemingly appalled at the very question.
Dr Bone intervened to say the divorce had been granted. The wife would simply have to wait for three menstrual cycles to pass, in accordance with sharia law, then she would be free to remarry.
The next case involved an Ethiopian whose husband came to Britain in the Nineties as a child refugee. They had married in Addis Ababa in 2003, and he brought her back here to get her a UK visa.
However, he left her to live with his brother and sister-in-law, going back and forth between the UK and East Africa, where he secretly took a second wife and consorted with mistresses.
Whenever he returned, she would become pregnant and she now had five children aged between five and 15. She, too, was granted a religious divorce.
What she didn’t seem to grasp was that, as she had married a British passport- holder, her marriage was also valid civilly — so before she was free to remarry, she needed a civil divorce. The judges patiently explained this to her.
As one of Britain’s oldest established sharia councils, Birmingham is also asked to adjudicate on marital disputes from overseas. This can make it difficult for the parties to appear in court personally.
During my visit, the panel debated whether it might be in order to hear cases and deliver judgments via Skype.
Dr Mahmoud Akhtar, a whitebearded scholar from Huddersfield, expressed reservations. Dr Bone was broadly in favour, as long as people’s identity could be verified. But she later told me this innovation was ‘unlikely to happen any time soon’.
Perhaps not. Yet we might think the very notion of dispensing sharia by Skype deeply ironic, given the ancient origins of Islamic jurisprudence and accusations that it is far removed from modern British values.
Yes, I had certainly been impressed by what I saw in the Birmingham mosque. But if we are to uphold these British values, surely we must adhere to one universal law — a law under which everyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity and religion, is treated equally?
Concern at the rise of sharia in Britain is not confined to Establishment figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Women’s rights groups and leading feminists, including countless Muslims, are campaigning to reform these courts and even have them closed — and with good cause, as I shall show in part two of my investigation, to be published soon.
When judges can order a battered wife from Yorkshire to return to her brutal husband, one understands why such critics passionately believe sharia law belongs to another time and place, and is utterly incompatible with the freedom and equality we cherish.