Abstract
Leadership and authority were two central themes in the mission statement of the first ever Shariah tribunal to emerge in the UK. When the Islamic Shariah Council was established in 1982, it noted that its founding meeting had been attended by Muslim scholars from a number of mosques in the UK who represented the major schools of Islamic law. This ensured in its own words that it was widely accepted as an authoritative body with regards to Islamic law and that it was therefore able to cater to the basic religious needs of the Muslim community. Since their emergence in the 1980s, Shariah tribunals have played an important role in guiding the Muslim community through the provision of religious services. This paper seeks to enrich the literature on Shariah tribunals by critically assessing how such tribunals have used their expertise in Islamic law to wield quasi-judicial authority in the British Muslim community, within a legal system which does not directly grant legal jurisdiction to religious tribunals. The paper highlights the distinctive characteristics of the authority which Shariah tribunals exercise as religious institutions, which distinguish them from the secular courts of the state despite the judicial functions which both share in common.
Highlights
Several religious minorities in England have historically established tribunals to serve the religious needs of their members, with prominent examples being the Catholic and Jewish communities (Malik 2012)
This paper seeks to enrich the literature on Shariah tribunals by critically assessing how such tribunals have used their expertise in Islamic law to wield quasi-judicial authority in the British Muslim community, within a legal system which does not directly grant legal jurisdiction to religious tribunals
An exploration of the socio-historical origins which led to the formation of Shariah tribunals revealed how classical manuals of Islamic law represented the source from which the religious jurisdiction of British Shariah tribunals as quasi-judicial institutions in a non-Muslim land sprang
Summary
Several religious minorities in England have historically established tribunals to serve the religious needs of their members, with prominent examples being the Catholic and Jewish communities (Malik 2012). The author was one of the first researchers in the UK to engage in a detailed black-letter law analysis of the legal provisions which relate to Shariah tribunals as part of his doctoral research which took place between 2013 and 2016 (Al-Astewani 2016b) This included an exploration of the impact on Shariah tribunals of the Arbitration Act 1996 and the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002, as well as the ramifications of important cases involving the legal status of Shariah tribunals such as Al-Midani v Al-Midani, Uddin v Chaudhury and AI v MT. Understanding the precise nature of the authority which Shariah tribunals exercise and the influence which they enjoy in the British Muslim Community is pertinent for policy makers assessing the future role of such tribunals in the English legal system It will more broadly benefit researchers in the human and social sciences as an illuminating case-study of the dynamic ways in which law and religion interact with one another. The fourth and final section highlights the pastoral and spiritual elements of the services which Shariah tribunals provide, and emphasizes how these elements culminate in a fusion of spiritual and legal authority which distinguish Shariah tribunals from the secular state courts despite the parallels which both share
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