Muslims are not asking for Britons to abide by Sharia, just that they be allowed to use Sharia courts in cases where both sides agree to abide by their decision. Muslims would still have to abide by British law and to suffer the consequences if they don’t. No-one, Muslim or non-Muslim, would have to abide by Sharia law if they didn’t want to.

The Taliban and Saudi Arabia are two extreme versions of Sharia law. Islam is actually a very fair and tolerant religion. It has only been made extreme by extremists and the danger here is that by not allowing Sharia we force young Muslims to choose between British society and their religion. For Muslims there can only be one winner and this will force moderates to come into contact with extremists and to become radicalised.

When British law was imposed on colonial India women were stripped of their property and freedom's from their husbands, guardians etc. By removing Sharia law, women's rights were harmed. Indeed, it took 1300 years for 'western' states to catch up with Islamic law in respect to women's rights. A woman was able to divorce, own property, take part in politics and public life long before British and American women. However, one must accept that since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islamic jurisprudence has been in a heavy decline. It is here, that we are presented with an opportunity for Islamic jurisprudence to be developed and allowed to modernise by engaging with British law. There is an opportunity for both legal systems to engage and learn from one another.

In relation to punishments imposed by Sharia - in Britain, the death penalty was officially repealed in 1998. The last executions took place in 1965. However, there are undoubtedly a growing number of people that would re-introduce the death penalty in Britain, regardless of Sharia. Nevertheless, the motion does not imply an imposition of Sharia over the entire British public nor over criminal law. The difference between secular western states and Muslim majority states is that Muslims have had a God-based/given legal system for 1400 years and on the whole Muslims are religious people that have been directed to live a certain way of life (thus, for example, the attitude to homosexuality). While Muslims and Jews have their own advanced legal systems, Christianity never fully developed its own independent one, and so the current legal system was developed in the wester world, although the basic tenants of Christian teaching are present within them.

Muslims have made great efforts to integrate with British society, the reason they feel alienated is because they have been made to feel so through intolerant attitudes from some in this country. Sharia law does not interfere with British law, it does not replace British law and will not affect British people. It simply recognises that sometimes Muslims want to abide by Muslim rules.

And how would that be worse than the present situation? Most arbitrators of Sharia would be Muslim. And even if they are very western, they would still be less western than the present arbitrators of the British legal system.

The idea is not to get All Muslims to come around, all Muslims are not the same(as you've pointed out, some are relatively liberal/conservative), the idea is to recruit 'anyone' willing to trust the government after a minor change, that familiarizes the Justice system to them. To argue that no such people/person exist/s is presumptuous.

Such a change would mean that British society is not rigidly intolerant of the voice of the minority, making whites more accepting, less judgmental and the Muslim British minority feel more comfortable and less oppressed in its surroundings.

The adoption of a supplementary legal framework for certain legal issues is not dangerous, when only applied to Muslims. Ultimately, the Parliamentary recognition of this field as a legal mechanism is not a huge step towards some sort of oppression or lack of integration but is more of a formality. Instead it would allow Muslims to engage with the legal system further if Sharia elements were brought into the legal code. Sharia law introduced various human rights and civil liberties long before the European and American revolutions and the move towards the legal frameworks, rights and political systems that exist in the Western world today.

The Muslim and democratic state of Malaysia, for example, has different laws that apply to non-Muslims to those that apply to Muslims under sharia. The system has generally been a success, and would present an opportunity to engage all minorities within Britain. Moreover, there is a strong possibility that non-Muslims would turn to the Sharia legal elements within English law because of expediency and its emphasis on justice and negotiation. Arguably, but perhaps too wishfully, if the British public were able to gain a (greater) understanding of Sharia law it would allow for social cohesion and integration and cross-cultural dialogue, instead of non-Muslims automatically viewing Sharia as an out of date legal practice.

The motion is not calling for secular law to be abolished, rather supplemented by an alternative yet fair judicial system which can be approached by those who do not wish to undergo the expense and bureaucracy of the secular law systems.

Christian law has often been just as brutal and misogynistic as Islamic law. Allowing people to practice Sharia law whilst under the supervision of secular law will prevent harsh and cruel punishments from being installed, and the constant discussion amongst imams would allow Sharia law to evolve and adapt. Jewish law is based on rabbinical decision and the country’s own law, allowing adaptation and prevention of old and useless laws and customs, and simply changing British law to accommodate for Muslims would not solve the problem of expense and bureaucracy.

Rowan Williams, and indeed any sane person, did not and would not argue for the imposition of Sharia law on the entire British population. His argument was based upon the extension of current informal legal practices in certain areas of the UK where, for example, Sharia law is used in regards to marriage, divorce and commercial agreements/disagreements between Muslims. This is a growing field due to its success and support from Muslims that do not wish to undergo the time consuming, convoluted and expensive English legal system. The motion does not call for the abolition of English law, but rather the adoption of a supplementary system within civil law. Therefore, freedom of religion is not jeopardised and a referendum is unnecessary. A referendum would in fact be a tyranny of the majority as the answer would undoubtedly be a ‘no’ due to the lack of knowledge and fear mongering that would go and does go hand in hand with this contentious and misunderstood topic. Democracies exist to protect minority rights within a state and not to enforce the majority view. Moreover, the death penalty in Britain was only fully repealed in 1998 by the Human Rights Act, section 21(5), and initially in 1965 for murder. There has not been a long standing jurisprudential and legal framework for the abolition of capital punishment anyway. The suggestion that ‘it would force law from one religion upon’ another is absurd if only applied to the 2 million Muslims in the UK. The adoption of Sharia does not automatically void the United Kingdom’s commitment to European Union law and the ECHR; indeed the very notion that human rights and civil liberties have no link to Sharia is offensive to 1400 years of Islamic jurisprudence. Human rights and civil liberties were introduced through Islamic law long before Locke, Mills et al developed legal principles such as the rule of law and non-retroactivity. Finally, if we consider the practices of a number of Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, we see that there exists various legal divisions that deal with non-Muslims, in addition to the Sharia based law for Muslims, and the criminal code that is applied to all citizens. Therefore, the adoption of sharia law within the UK does not go against British values, and certainly not the freedom of religion.