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| Dave Coull |
The Imam's Daughterhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5907458.eceFrom The Sunday Times March 15, 2009 My imam father came after me with an axe by Dominic Lawson Hannah Shah had been raped by her father and faced a forced marriage. She fled, became a Christian and now fears for her life We are all too familiar with the persecution of Christians in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yet sitting in front of me is a British woman whose life has been threatened in this country solely because she is a Christian. Indeed, so real is the threat that the book she has written about her experiences has had to appear under an assumed name. The book is called The Imam’s Daughter because “Hannah Shah” is just that: the daughter of an imam in one of the tight-knit Deobandi Muslim Pakistani communities in the north of England. Her father emigrated to this country from rural Pakistan some time in the 1960s and is, apparently, a highly respected local figure. He is also an incestuous child abuser, repeatedly raping his daughter from the age of five until she was 15, ostensibly as part of her punishment for being “disobedient”. At the age of 16 she fled her family to avoid the forced marriage they had planned for her in Pakistan. A much, much greater affront to “honour” in her family’s eyes, however, was the fact that she then became a Christian – an apostate. The Koran is explicit that apostasy is punishable by death; thus it was that her father the imam led a 40-strong gang – in the middle of a British city – to find and kill her. Hannah Shah says her story is not unique – that there are many other girls in British Muslim families who are oppressed and married off against their will, or who have secretly become Christians but are too afraid to speak out. She wants their voices to be heard and for Britain, the land of her birth, to realise the hidden misery of these women. Hannah’s own voice is quiet and emerges from a tiny frame. She is clearly nervous about talking to a journalist and the stress she has been under is betrayed by a bald patch on the left side of her head. Yet she has a lovely natural smile, especially when she reveals that she got married a year ago; her husband works in the Church of England, “though not as a vicar”. I tell Hannah that the passages in her memoir about her sexual abuse are almost impossible to read – but I also found it hard to understand why, now that she is in her early thirties, independent and married, she has not reported her father’s horrific assaults on her to the police. “What has stopped me is that if my dad went to prison, the shame that would be brought upon the rest of the family would be horrific. My mum would not be able to . . . I mean, it’s bad enough having a daughter who’s left, is not agreeing to her marriage and is now a Christian. Then to have my dad in prison would be the end for her.” I tell Hannah, perhaps a little cruelly, that in her use of the word “shame” she is echoing the sort of arguments that her own family had used against her. “I understand that, but what I’m saying is that if I do that, then there will never be a door open to me to have contact with my family ever again. I’m still hoping that there will be some opportunity for that.” Of course, by writing this book, albeit under an assumed name and with all the places and characters disguised, there is a chance that her family and community will identify themselves in it. What does she think they would do, then? “To be honest, I don’t even want to think about that. Either they will decide between them that they are not going to say anything because it will bring shame on all the community, or they will decide that they want to take action. Then my life will become even more difficult, because they’ll all be looking for me.” Hannah’s description in the book of the moment when her “community” discovered the “safe” home where she had fled after becoming an apostate is terrifying. A mob with her father at its head pounded and hammered at the door as she cowered upstairs hoping she could not be seen or heard. She heard her father shout through the letter box: “Filthy traitor! Betrayer of your faith! Cursed traitor! We’re going to rip your throat out! We’ll burn you alive!” Does she still believe they would have killed her? “Yes, without a doubt. They had hammers and knives and axes.” Why didn’t you call the police after-wards? “First, I didn’t think the police would believe me. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen in this country – or that’s what they’d think. Second, I didn’t believe I would get help or protection from the authorities.” Hannah had good reason for this doubt. When, at school, she had finally summoned the courage to tell a teacher that her father had been beating her (she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the sexual abuse), the social services sent out a social worker from her own community. He chose not to believe Hannah and, in effect, shopped her to her father, who gave her the most brutal beating of her life. When she later confronted the social worker, he said: “It’s not right to betray your community.” Hannah blames what is sometimes called political correctness for this debacle: “My teachers had thought they were doing the right thing, they thought it showed ‘cultural sensitivity’ by bringing in someone from my own community to ‘help’, but it was the worst thing they could have done to me. This happens a lot. “When I’ve been working with girls who were trying to get out of an arranged marriage, or want to convert to Christianity, and they have contacted social services as they need to get out of their homes, the reaction has been ‘we’ll send someone from your community to talk to your parents’. I know why they are doing this, they are trying to be understanding, but it’s the last thing that the authorities should do in such situations.” This is the sort of cultural sensitivity displayed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, last year when he suggested that problems within the British Muslim community such as financial or marital disputes could be dealt with under sharia, Islamic law, rather than British civil law. What did Hannah, now an Anglican, think on hearing these remarks? “I was horrified.” If you could speak to him now, what would you say to the archbishop? “I would say: have you actually spoken to any ordinary Muslim women about the situation that they live in, in their communities? By putting in place these Muslim arbitration tribunals, where a woman’s witness is half that of a man, you are silencing women even more.” She believes the British government is making exactly the same mistake as Rowan Williams: “It says it talks to the Muslim community, but it’s not speaking to the women. I mean, you are always hearing Muslim men speaking out, the representatives of the big federations, but the government is not listening to Muslim women. With the sharia law situation and the Muslim arbitration tribunals, have they thought about what effect these tribunals have on Muslim women? I don’t think so.” It’s fair to say that Hannah Shah is an evangelical Christian, who clearly feels a duty to spread her new faith to Muslims– something with which the Church of England’s eternally emollient establishment is very uncomfortable and the government even more so. She points out that even within this notionally Christian country, people are “persecuted” for evangelism of even the mildest sort. She cites the recent cases of the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient and the foster parents who were struck off after a Muslim girl in their care converted to Christianity. “Such people – I’m not talking about apostates like me – have been persecuted or ostracised in this country simply because they want to share their faith with others. People call this political correctness but I actually think it is based on a fear of Muslims, what they might do if provoked.” Shah’s conversion seems to have its origins in the fact that the family who put her up after she ran away from the prospect of an arranged marriage in rural Pakistan were themselves regular church attenders. She began to go with them and, to put it at its most banal, she liked what she heard. “It was the emphasis on love. The Islam that I grew up knowing and reading about doesn’t offer me love. That’s the biggest thing that Christianity can and does offer. I sense that I belong and am accepted as I am – even when I do wrong there is forgiveness, a forgiveness which Islam does not offer.” So does Hannah offer Christian forgiveness to the father who raped and abused her and who, by her own account, was even prepared to murder her? “It’s taken a long time and it’s only in the past few years that I’ve got to that. It’s very hard to get there and it’s taken a lot of shouting and screaming behind closed doors, and praying, to get me to the point of being able to say: I forgive. I have to, partly because otherwise I would be a very bitter and angry person and I don’t want to livea life that’s full of anger.” I can’t help asking how she would react if a future child of hers decided she wanted to abandon the Christian faith of the family home and become a Muslim. “It would be very hard for me, obviously.” Would she try to discourage it? “No. I’d bring them up as Christians, take them to church, but I’d also want them to know about, well, my culture, about Islam. Because being Christian should be a choice, not what you’re born to. But yes, it would be hard if they chose Islam.” Somehow, though, I think Hannah Shah would cope. |
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| Dave Coull |
The Sunday Times is, as far as I'm concerned, not the most reputable of papers. This Sunday Times reporter is the son of Maggie Thatcher's chancellor of the exchequer, Nigel Lawson. Dominic Lawson went to a fancy fee-paying school, Westminster (!!!!!!) and then to Oxford. He is "married to The Honourable Rosamond Mary Monckton, daughter of the second Viscount Monckton of Brenchley". We really are talking privileged background here.
Having said that, the truth remains the truth, no matter who says it. And I see no particular reason to doubt that, in this instance, Lawson's report is substantially true. "Hannah", raised a Muslim, has, apparently, become a member of the Church of England. That simple fact alone puts her at odds with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who supports "the Muslim community" administering their own forms of "justice". Now, apparently, there is a bit in the Koran which says anybody who was ever a Muslim and ceases to be a Muslim should be put to death; and some Muslims, not all, but some, do take that quite literally. The safest thing "Hannah" could do, in these circumstances, is keep quiet. But she has become an EVANGELICAL Christian. She has become the kind of Christian who takes literally what the New Testament teaches: go out and spread the Gospel to all the world. Okay, what should be the attitude of those of us who are NOT Muslims, NOT members of the Church of England, and NOT evangelical Christians, towards this? We should be in favour of freedom. We should be in favour of freedom of conscience - anybody should be free to choose to believe whatever they want to believe, no matter how wrong, or even sinful, other folk consider their beliefs. Anybody should be free to CHANGE their beliefs. We should be in favour of freedom of speech - anybody should be free to try to convert anybody else to anything else. Yes, it's a pain when the Mormons, or the Jehovah's Witnesses, come knocking on your door, but it's YOUR door, so if you don't want to talk to them just tell them to go away. And OF COURSE we should be against anybody being killed, or persecuted, merely because they have changed their minds about something. We should be intolerant of intolerance. |
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| Aventinian |
What is, to your mind?
Come off it; Canterbury supports Islamic arbitration tribunals within the structure of our law. These now exist, and are operating well, they don't involve anyone getting body parts chopped off. Yet they manage to resolve conflicts without requiring court action and within Muslim's own communities.
I rather think that goes without saying. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
They might not chop people's heads off, but you can bet they don't give women a fair deal. Religion has no place in the law of this country. |
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| Aventinian |
From my knowledge of them - and I have taken some interest in the developments in this field - that's completely untrue. The presumption that all Muslims, or at least all Muslim clerics, are backwards sexists is simply prejudice: it's no way accurate. The people serving on these tribunals are a mixture of young and old, male and female, of varied backgrounds; the tribunals themselves have been committed to preventing discrimination of any sort. They also sit with qualified solicitors. Any action which they took which was discriminatory could be overturned by a state court anyway.
In that case, you clearly believe individual liberty has no place in the law of this country. |
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| Holebender |
Sharia law determines that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man, so how on earth can any Sharia-based tribunal treat women fairly? There is no place for religion in our legal system, and we must all be equal before the law, and we must all be subjected to the same legal system. Anything else is a fundamental failing of our freedoms and rights. | ||||||||||||
| Lord Pitsligo |
You have got to be kidding me.
Please explain that outrageous comment further. |
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| Scott2006 |
Aventinian I believe you are conflating two different points. The individual liberty to follow any or no religion at all is a separate matter from the functional court system we have and the authority it wields in a legal sense. Religious observance and special pleading on religious grounds work against an inclusive secular society. |
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| Aventinian |
It's odd how people are quite so willing to apply absolute rules to Islamic jurisprudence, whilst no doubt realising the flexibility in our own Judeo-Christian equivalent. Sharia law has evolved, it has different interpretations, it changes and alters. Sharia law is a varied system based on religious teaching, and is at the same time as much cultural as it is religious. To my knowledge, the issue you mention was related to business deals: in a culture where business was largely transacted by men, it was seen that they had the oversight. Islamic Arbitration Tribunals in the UK do not apply that as a rule.
I disagree. In a civil dispute, people are perfectly entitled (indeed, encouraged) to seek a solution outside court which satisfies both parties. That is how arbitration tribunals evolved. The fact that this is an Islamic tribunal does not remotely affect that. Indeed, the ability of people to solve disputes in this fashion is simply an extension of the right to freely make agreements and form contracts amongst one-another. To exclude this sort of thing from the UK is an unjustifiable infringement of the individual freedom to contract and conduct business. I don't care about an inclusive secular society. If people want to exclude themselves, or follow their own cultures, that is entirely their right. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
Who is excluding it? I just don't want any religious based system to be enforceable by law. |
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| Holebender |
You are completely wrong and ill-informed. The rule that a woman's testimony is equivalent to half a man's is uniformly applied throughout Sharia. It applies in criminal cases, including rape. In the case of rape, the accused's testimony carries twice the weight of his accuser's. Equality before the law? I don't think so. Let's see you try to pass that off as some sort of nutty conspiracy theory. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
The law exists to protect those who need protection. A lot of women in these communities are very vunerable and need our protection. These idiotic & sexist courts are an affront to decency in this country and should not be condoned by the legal system. They, of course, have very little to do with Islam, but more to do with the culture of many Muslim countries. A culture not much different to this one's a few centuries ago, one which we evolved out of. We may as bring back slavery while we're at it if we're going to turn the clock back. |
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| Aventinian |
Then you're refusing to recognise and provide legal protection for a perfectly valid agreement between two parties - and again, for no reason other than silly prejudices.
Again, extremist and twisted cultural interpretations of Sharia do not equal Sharia. Anyway, as I've said, nothing like this occurs in UK Islamic Tribunals, and if it did it wouldn't be enforceable. Therefore, it is not a legitimate criticism of what is being suggested, nor is it reflective of Sharia law: which, as I've said before, is entirely diverse: states using Sharia vary widely in what they apply, and scholars debate what is correct. The example you give would be an extremely conservative vein of Sharia. |
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| Aventinian |
You're utterly ignorant of British Muslim Arbitration Tribunals and how they operate, yet you're willing to judge them on your prejudices? Utterly contemptible. There is nothing remotely sexist about these tribunals. In fact, they positively discriminate towards women in getting representation on tribunals.
I'm glad you see yourself as so superior to all these 'idiotic' foreigners. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
If they want to come to some agreement, let them, I just don't think a legal system should recognise anything done in the name of a religion. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
Who says I'm ignorant? Who says I'm basing things on prejudices? Maybe you should open your eyes and have a look at the world outside Tory headquarters.
So's supporting the abuse of women. I bet turning a blind eye to this crap ends up (honour) killing more people than nationalism.
That's possibly the stupidest & most offensive thing you've said, and that's saying something. An entire demographic is at risk here, and you're dismissing people's concerns. I would point you in the direction of the abundance of online evidence against you, but you seem intend on arguing for its own sake, so I won't bother.
Not all foreigners, just those who have a well documented history of the abuse and persecution of women, or are you denying that women are treated as second class citizens in some (not all) muslim countries? |
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| Aventinian |
The two are inseparable. I wonder, incidentally, do you believe then that all marriage ceremonies performed in a church ought to be rendered legally invalid?
Yeah, 'cause all they talk about is how wonderful Islamic Arbitration Tribunals are down the Central Office... You clearly are: you ascribed attributes to these tribunals that do not stand up to fact, and have no reason for making them other than prejudice.
No doubt directing me to BNP websites where anything vaguely Islamic is condemned. Serious commentators, however, have praised the tribunals; they will continue to function well, just as the Jewish tribunals have done in this country for generations. I'm dismissing these concerns because they're founded on little more than petty racism. I'm frankly sick of Islamophobia in this country and the way it is peddled by the tabloid rags and seen to be acceptable in certain quarters of society.
So you think you can learn nothing from the ancient cultures of the world because they have a different view on women's rights to you? Whilst you stand lecturing them on morality, I imagine they'll happily point out that you - a Briton - are hardly in a position to be lecturing Islamic countries on morality given the state of your own nation. Everywhere on earth has its failings, but you choose to dismiss a culture of billions on the basis largely of misunderstanding? That's just awful. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
No they're not. The second comment has you going all strawman again, there's nothing wrong with where a legal ceremony takes place, as long as the laws that bind it aren't enforceable or written by the church.
So you're saying that under no circumstances do these courts discriminate against women?
Given that I've been a vocal critic of the BNP here before, invoking their name won't help you here, especially as you'd probably love what they have to say about the SNP 
Many serious commentators have criticised these courts as well, especially women's groups who are deeply concerned about their track record in dealing with women. And as I said earlier, this has very little to do with Islam, and more to do with the society of some Islamic countries, after all, they're not much different to how we were in the past, so don't go screaming "racism!" like a Guardian reader at me. I'm no fan of the Jewish courts either to be honest, but then I don't like any mix of state & religion.
You're putting words in my mouth, yet again. I said no such thing. I would suggest however, that these cultures can teach us very little about women's rights. As for ancient cultures, I have studied ancient history all my life, I even plan to run the 2010 Athens Marathon in honour of the men who died to defend the first democracy 2500 years ago.
We're working on this being a "Briton" thing. And I'm not lecturing them on morality on their own countries, I'm expressing my opinion on how I wish the law in my own country to be used to protect vunerable people.
What misunderstanding? That women don't have equal rights? And who says I'm dismissing a culture? I just want religion & its asssociated fairy stories to have no place in law. And don't think I'm anti-Islam, I'd get rid of those bishops from the house of lords as well. |
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| Holebender |
Are you being deliberately obtuse? What sorts of situations is Sharia being mooted for in Britain? Various business disputed and marital problems. Sharia is specifically being proposed as a legitimate means of settling disputes between men and women. Sharia, a system which gives the testimony of men double the weight of the testimony of women, is to be used to settle disputes between men and women, and our politicians are encouraging this iniquity. And don't tell me it will only be voluntary because we both know that many women will be forced by their families and communities into accepting these tribunals. BTW, Sharia also give less credence to the testimony of non-Muslims than it does to that of Muslims, but at least we will have a choice, for now. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
"Honour" may require action from a minority of the families if they don't. |
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| Aventinian |
This is just a nonsense. I've already said that nothing of this sort would or could be used in Britain, and that it represents an extreme form of Sharia that you are using to paint the whole concept with.
You cannot limit freedom of individual choice and agreement out of some baseless suspicion. Moreover, no, I don't think this is true: the various tribunals have taken a great deal of steps to allay public fears like this, regardless of how ridiculous they are. |
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| Aventinian |
The laws that bind arbitration are not written by any church. You've also backpeddled from your original position. Call it a strawman if you will, but that's exactly what you said and now you can't support it because it doesn't fit in with your double-standard.
I cannot say that of any court, however they do not discriminate any more than normal and when they do they are acting improperly.
Their track record? They've only recently been established and their track record has been exemplary.
Funny that, considering they were setting the standard for women's right all the way up to the 20th century.
Nope, you've completely dismissed the Islamic world because you don't agree with some small part of their judicial system which is only practised in a couple of countries.
Then you don't want individual freedom to have a place in law; as I've said, you cannot have one without another, and if you care to put your aggressive, evangelical secularism (not to mention a double-standard against the group that it's fashionable to be prejudiced against) ahead of that then your views are worthless and offensive. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
What the hell are you talking about now?!?
So all these women's groups are wrong and you're right then? Bloody hell, are you ever wrong?
So in the first sentence you suggest they have no track record, yet by the end of the second sentence you say they have an examplary track record. Which is it?
Apart from the questionable accuracy of that statement, this isn't the 20th century.
Yet again, I'm going to ask you not to put words in my mouth. I've already said this is about the cultures of certain countries that are Islamic, not about Islam itself. I know that there are many Islamic countries that don't discriminate against women as badly as some others.
Why is wanting religion kept separate from law being against freedom? Again, labels don't make arguments. You seem to be in the habit of declaring that views that differ from your own are offensive. |
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| Holebender |
I give up. Aventinian refuses to see the truth about Sharia and willfully chooses to believe in a falsehood. He has shown himself unable to debate this topic, so I withdraw.
If, however, Aventiniain chooses to continue with his assertions about Sharia, I want to see sources, as I am prepared to post dozens of references to the way Sharia regards women. Here's a starter: http://www.ntpi.org/html/womensrights.html |
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| agentmancuso |
In France, couples who marry in a religious service have to redo the thing officially before a representative of the Republic, as religious marriage is not legally recognised. |
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| Dave Coull |
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| jamesieboy |
Aventian - Islamophobia is an obvious misnomer.
A phobia is an irrational fear of something. There is nothing irrational about a fear, or a dislike of a religion some of whose followers/adherents are causing an awful lot of trouble around the world. Why are there no Buddhist suicide bombers? And why do you use the usual 'racism' charges? Morocco is islamic, so are some of the islands in the Phillipines. And many places in between. If i don't fancy some aspects of a culture or religion then I will exercise my democratic right to do so, as in Denmark. And look what happened there. |
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| jamesieboy |
An interesting post, Dave.
I used to live in Barcelona and it is a very liberal (and quite nationalistic) city. It was, of course, where the resistance to Franco was concentrated. I went to college in Barcelona, it WASN'T the University of Barcelona but at ESADE at the top of Avinguda (Avenida) Pedralbes. Although the college was basically a Jesuit one I got the feeling that the city itself was fairly tolerant and pluralist in its politics. |
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