[Al Arabiya Latest] Islamic law should not be recognized under the United Kingdom's arbitration laws because its principles are outdated and they contradict Western laws, a report by a British think-tank said on Monday, which UK Muslim figures have dismissed as ''scaremongering.''The report, Shariah Law or One for All?, claimed to have discovered as many as 85 Islamic ''courts'' operating in Britain that hand out unofficial rulings, or fatwas, sought by devout Muslims from their mosque imams, which the report claims are in contrast to the laws applied in British courts.
''They are not official in terms of British law but they carry weight in terms of Shariah,'' Dennis MacEoin, author of the report published by independent think-tank Civitas, told Al Arabiya, adding such rulings are ''inappropriate with Western legislation.''
MacEoin said he believed the worst contradictions were in Shariah's laws on marriage and divorce and said Muslim men can easily divorce their wives, leaving the woman with no rights and turning Muslim women into ''second class citizens.''
When asked about Beth Din, the Jewish court that operates freely across the U.K., MacEoin said they only rule according to British law.
''It is discriminatory against a woman and I'm not happy about that," MacEoin explained.
According to Jewish law it is ''very difficult'' for a woman to get a divorce from her husband and this makes the arguments against Islamic law applicable to Jewish law.
MacEoin said he believed Shariah was outdated and was ''no longer appropriate for the modern period'' because ''it is not how the world works any more.''
He added it was not possible to integrate Shariah law into British law and said the current situation was harmful to relations between Muslims and non-Muslims and hindered Muslim integration into British society.
Last year, head of the Anglican Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, caused public outcry when he suggested that the adoption of aspects of Islamic law in the U.K. was "unavoidable."
The issue of integrating Britain's 1.8 million Muslims has been widely debated since July 2005, when four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings on London's transport system, killing 52 people.
However a member of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) criticized the report, splashed across the British press, for its lack of research credibility. ''It must be gratifying to be able to publish work without ever properly researching the subject matter,'' the unnamed MCB member wrote on Engage, a U.K.-based media awareness website. ''And it says something of any institute willing to even entertain the idea of publishing such poor quality work.''
Inayat Bunglawala, also of MCB, told Britain's the Telegraph: "To term them Shariah courts is ridiculous, it's just scaremongering."
Bunglawala was referring to the 85 ''courts'' allegedly operating across the U.K., which is a massive jump from only five believed to be dotted around the country.