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Sharia row turns nasty

LONDON: The outrage over the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s remarks that aspects of Sharia could be incorporated into British law took a nasty turn at the weekend as he was heckled while leaving a service in Cambridge and his office was reported to be flooded with hate mail.

Dr. Williams, who is the senior most religious figure in the Church of England with a reputation for wading into controversies through his “exploratory” musings, also faced calls to resign.

Two members of the Church’s ruling body, the Synod, urged him to step down saying while he had a “brilliant” mind Dr. Williams was “not the man for the job.” The calls came ahead of a crucial meeting of Synod where he is expected to come under pressure to defend his position.

The row was sparked by his remarks in a speech in London earlier in the week when he said he believed that adoption of some aspects of Sharia (such as in matters of divorce and inheritance) in British laws was “unavoidable.” Britain, he argued, must “face up to the fact” that some citizens did not relate to the country’s secular legal system.

Senior politicians, clerics, rights activists and even Muslim groups launched an unprecedented attack on the Archbishop denouncing his remarks as a “misguided” attempt to interfere with Britain’s secular laws.

Dr. Williams was reported to be “shocked” by the reaction which his supporters described as “hysterical.”

As the issue threatened to cause further fissures in the Church, already divided over its stand on issues like homosexuality, the Archbishop claimed that his remarks had been misinterpreted.

In a statement on his website, he clarified that he was simply “exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience.”

His aim, he said, was to “tease out” some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state.

He also pointed out that certain provisions of the Sharia were already recognised under the law.

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