Britain: Senior figures slam archbishop over Shariah comments

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Senior Catholic and Anglican clerics have attacked the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' suggestion that Britain's legal system should accommodate aspects of traditional Islamic law - known as Shariah. The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and William's predecessor as spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion both condemned the archbishop's remarks, which have been feeding a raging controversy since he first made them in an interview Thursday. Lord Carey, who served as the Church in England's most senior bishop between 1991 and 2002, said in an editorial published in The Sunday Telegraph that even the limited adoption of Shariah in Britain would be a disaster. "What it would do for cohesion doesn't bear thinking about," Carey said. He explained that accommodation with Shariah, which is drawn from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, would only lead to further demands on the Britain's secular society.