Celebrity Lives - Sharia Style

irishconvert

Celebrity Lives - Sharia Style

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j6ll4/Celebrity_Lives_Sharia_Style/

09 Mar 2009, 23:35 on BBC One (except Scotland, Wales)

What would happen if you took high profile celebrity marriages, divorces and legal wrangles and settled them under Sharia law? The answers are rather surprising. Madonna might not have ended up paying Guy Ritchie anything. Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills might have done better to consider an Islamic-style marriage contract, where the norm is to agree a settlement figure before marriage.

Just over a year since the Archbishop of Canterbury made his provocative comments on Sharia law, Ajmal Masroor, a leading British Muslim and London imam, enlists the help of legal and Islamic commentators to explore the pros and cons of accommodating some parts of Sharia to the settling of civil disputes amongst British Muslims.

hivizman

Thanks for the information on this programme, Irishconvert. Ajmal Masroor was featured in a documentary on the Qur'an that was broadcast by Channel 4 last July, which was discussed in this thread.

Jannah

irishconvert wrote: »

where the norm is to agree a settlement figure before marriage.

I think Islam really is the best religion in regards to preparation before marriage- being able to state what you want from that marriage and give each partner assurances of what to expect is vital. It's not a whirlwind romance of 'marry now, think later', it's actually taken seriously and seen as what it really is- a contract between two people which allows them to fall in love in a way that is halal and tries to avoid either partner being exploited or forced into a situation which, later on, they find out isn't for them

hivizman

Just watched this programme on BBC iPlayer. It was an interesting discussion of some aspects (marriage, divorce, inheritance) of Sharia, though the programme ducked what most people associate with Sharia, which is the penal code. During the programme, various views were expressed that Sharia discriminates against women (for example, it's easier for men to initiate divorce than for women, the female share in an inheritance is less than the male share). One of the women interviewed, a solicitor, strongly opposed the idea of separate laws for Muslims, and another interviewee, Baroness Afshar, who could be described as a "Muslim feminist", was also hostile. The men interviewed seemed to be more pro-Sharia.

Towards the end of the programme, one of the interviewees mentioned how the legal system in Britain has proved flexible enough to accommodate Sharia-compliant financial structures, and several times the presenter suggested that the British legal system was closer to Sharia than many others. Overall, the programme's idea of illustrating the impact of Sharia by reference to recent celebrity cases was, I thought, a little superficial.