Judges reject bid to make Islamic marriages legally binding

A bid to make religious marriages legally binding in the UK has been rejected by judges, dashing the hopes of campaigners who say women are left penniless with no support after the break-up of sharia unions.

Campaigners claimed the landmark judgment, handed down at the Court of Appeal on Friday, could have “profoundly discriminatory consequences” for women and upholds an antiquated system of marriage.

The Court of Appeal overturned a family court judge’s decision that a woman was entitled to apply for maintenance payments from her estranged husband despite the fact they were not legally married. The attorney general had appealed the ruling.

Nasreen Akhter had a nikah, an Islamic marriage ceremony, that led to a Muslim marriage contract between herself and Mohammed Khan. The couple were married for 18 years and have four children together.

Ms Akhter, a 47-year-old solicitor, said she was keen to have a civil marriage and presumed it was on the cards, but her husband refused. She alleges their relationship ended after he said he wanted to take another wife; they separated in 2016. [The Independent] Read more

Appeal Court rules Islamic marriages invalid in UK

A court has reversed a judgment from two years ago which found that a couple who had an Islamic wedding ceremony could legally divorce.

The High Court ruled in 2018 that the couple's Islamic "nikah" ceremony fell within English marriage law.

But the Court of Appeal has now said it was an "invalid" non-legal ceremony.

Judges said the fact they intended to have a further civil ceremony meant they must have known their Islamic marriage had no legal effect in the UK.

The Attorney General appealed against the original court decision.

The case involved the divorce of Nasreen Akhter and Mohammed Shabaz Khan, who have four children.

The couple had an Islamic wedding ceremony in a west London restaurant in 1998 in the presence of an imam and about 150 guests, but no civil ceremony subsequently took place, despite Mrs Akhter repeatedly raising the issue.

They separated in 2016 and Mr Khan tried to block his wife's divorce petition two years ago on the basis they had not been legally married in the first place. [BBC] Read more

Islamic faith marriages not valid in English law, appeal court rules

Islamic faith marriages are not valid under English law, the court of appeal has ruled, in a blow to thousands of Muslim women who have no rights when it comes to divorce.

The judgment, delivered on Friday, overturned an earlier high court ruling that an Islamic marriage, known as a nikah, fell within the scope of English matrimonial law.

The appeal court has confirmed that nikah marriages are legally “non-marriages”, meaning spouses have no redress to the courts for a division of matrimonial assets such as the family home and spouse’s pension if a marriage breaks down.

Many couples who undergo nikah ceremonies believe they are lawfully married. But their marriages are only legal if they additionally go through a civil ceremony.

A survey in 2017 found nearly all married Muslim women in the UK had had a nikah and almost two-thirds had not had a separate civil ceremony. [The Guardian] Read more

'Toxic' Islamist terror website editors jailed

Two web managers who ran a website glorifying Islamist terror groups and encouraging attacks have been jailed.

Muhammad Abdur Kamali and Mohammed Abdul Ahad promoted "toxic ideologies" including speeches by hate preacher Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal.

Their website also featured material from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, the Old Bailey heard.

Kamali, 31, of Rochdale, and Ahad, 38, of north London, each received sentences of four-and-a-half years.

The pair were found guilty of four counts of dissemination of terrorist publications, while Ahad was also found guilty of the possession of a document or record likely to be useful in preparing an act of terrorism. [BBC] Read more

MP Khalid Mahmood calls for tougher controls on Muslim schools and security checks on imams

The number of extremists known to the security forces is only "the tip of the iceberg", Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood has warned.

He called for tougher controls on Islamic schools known as madrassahs, to ensure they are not promoting extremist beliefs, and said teachers of Islam, known as imams, should be subject to security checks.

Mr Mahmood, the Labour MP for Perry Barr, was speaking as MPs debated changing the law to prevent people convicted of terrorism offences being released from jail half-way through their sentence.

It follows a terrorist incident near London Bridge last year in which two people were killed, an an attack in Streatham on February 2. In both cases, the perpetrators had been automatically released from jail part way through serving a sentence.

Mr Mahmood said some violent extremists might consider themselves Muslims but they practiced a "misguided version of Islam". He said: "They do not practise Islam; they practise what they believe is Islam. Islam in itself is a peaceful religion." [Birmingham Mail] Read more

Controversial Muslim school at centre of probe is shut down - by order of Government

The Department for Education has removed the controversial Birmingham Muslim School from its register of independent schools, triggering its closure.

An investigation into its owners, Albayan Education Foundation Ltd, is still under way by the Charity Commission, connected to an unreported "serious incident" relating to the lSmall Heath school.

The school's head, Janet Laws, also known as Aisha Abdrabba, had previously been subject to an interim prohibition order banning her from teaching because she was deemed "a potential risk to pupils" - though we understand the ban, imposed in February last year, was lifted in the autumn.

The school, which had 80 pupils aged 4-11 on roll, shut down for good on December 16, says the report.

Two inspectors from Ofsted, the schools' watchdog, stood by to ensure head teacher Aisha Abdrabba, also known as Janet Laws, was closing it down, it adds.

The school, in Golden Hillock Road, Small Heath, has been under regular review by Ofsted since 2014.

It opened in 2001 and throughout its 19 year history the school has never been graded 'Good' or better by Ofsted. [Birmingham Mail] Read more

Preacher who inspired Streatham terror attack peddling jihad from behind bars

Hundreds of sermons preached by the Islamist cleric who inspired the men who carried out the terrorist attacks in Streatham and on London Bridge in November are available on a website that allows his followers to communicate in private chatrooms, the Observer has established.

Abdullah al-Faisal, who was born into an evangelical Christian family in Jamaica and spent many years in Britain, has become one of the most successful propagandists for al-Qaida and Islamic State.

Sudesh Amman, 20, who was shot dead by police last week after coming out of prison for terrorism offences, had copies of Faisal’s speeches, the Times reported.

The newspaper also said that Usman Khan, 28, who fatally stabbed two Cambridge graduates near London Bridge last November, had the cleric’s number in his mobile phone when he was arrested over his links to a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange in December 2010. [The Guardian] Read more

Tory inquiry imam in free-speech row

A leading imam appointed by Theresa May to conduct a government inquiry into Islamophobia faced calls to stand down last night after he was accused of questioning free speech.

Qari Asim, the imam at the Makkah mosque in Leeds, was appointed to the government’s Islamophobia panel last July to help create a definition of anti-Muslim hatred.

However, a tape has emerged in which Asim told an interfaith workshop in September 2018 that, while Muslims “cherish free speech”, some want exceptions in instances where something is “distasteful to Muslims or they find it offensive”, particularly where it concerns the prophet Muhammad.

In his presentation, Asim suggested that some Muslims argue “we can have exceptions to the freedom of speech, on the basis of their being some words or some actions being offensive or distasteful”. [The Times (£)] Read more

Can Muslim Terrorists be Deradicalized? - Part I

"What we found [in prisons] was so shockingly bad that I had to agree to the language in the original report being toned down. With hindsight, I'm not sure that was the right decision." — Ian Acheson, British expert on prisons.

"There were serious deficiencies in almost every aspect of the management of terrorist offenders... Frontline prison staff were vulnerable to attack and were ill-equipped to counter hateful extremism on prison landings for fear of being accused of racism. Prison imams did not possess the tools, and sometimes the will, to combat Islamist ideology.

The prison service's intelligence-gathering system was hopelessly fractured and ineffectual." — Ian Acheson, "London Bridge attack: I told ministers we were treating terrorist prisoners with jaw-dropping naivety. Did they listen?", London Times, December 1, 2019. [Gatestone Institute] Read more

Streatham terror attacker devoted to ‘sheikh’ who inspired London Bridge killer

The jihadist who stabbed two shoppers had boasted of trying to join Islamic State and was devoted to a notorious preacher who inspired another convicted terrorist behind a similar knife attack.

Sudesh Amman was shot dead by police on Sunday after going on the rampage in Streatham, south London, ten days after being released from prison.

The attack had remarkable similarities to that carried out by Usman Khan, 28, another former prisoner who fatally stabbed two Cambridge graduates at London Bridge last November before he was shot by police.

Both men are linked to Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal, who has been accused of inspiring hundreds of jihadists, including the 7/7 bombers who killed 52 people in London in 2005. [The Times (£)] Read more

Muslim girls school kicks out Ofsted inspectors for wearing shoes in prayer room

A Birmingham school which charges pupils £4,000 a year in tuition has accused Ofsted of 'serious failings' after being rated as 'inadequate' - after it blocked inspectors during a visit.

Leaders at Cannon Hill Girls School say they felt 'belittled and degraded' by one of the inspector’s conduct during the inspection - the first since it opened in 2018 - adding that they are 'increasingly doubtful' about being able to place any faith in inspection judgements.

According to the Ofsted report leaders at the school, an independent Muslim day school for girls, were "unwilling to cooperate with inspectors," adding that they "prevented inspectors from collecting the full range of evidence that was needed to inform the inspection". [Birmingham Mail] Read more

Britain is losing the fight against extremism

.... Last November Usman Khan, an Islamist released from prison 11 months earlier, murdered two people at a conference that he was attending on London Bridge organised by a prisoners’ rehabilitation project.

This provoked much head-shaking about the risks of letting terrorists out of jail too early and accepting too easily that they’d been deradicalised. Now, some are saying we can’t go on like this.

.... For all the evidence suggests that deradicalisation programmes both inside and outside prison are singularly ineffectual. That’s not just because of the chaos in the under-resourced prison and probation system. It’s because of a conceptual error: the belief that the power of reason can be used against fanatics who believe in killing infidels and “martyring” themselves in the name of God, and wear mocked-up bomb-belts to encourage the police to kill them.

.... To begin to confront that threat properly, the government should admit what is staring it in the face: for the terrorists, we are the infidels in a holy war that will be fought to the bitter end. It is time that those states which still fund the most poisonous anti-western preachers took responsibility for the hatred they are spreading and time we shamed them into stopping it.

Liberalism’s flaw is that it believes reason is the antidote to all problems, including a religious death-cult. “We can’t go on like this” means our own society taking steps which won’t seem very liberal — be they tougher sentences or new restrictions on hate preachers.

But if a society is so liberal it refuses to defend itself properly, it will vanish. [The Times (£)] Read more

People afraid to call out segregation in schools, Ofsted chief warns

People are afraid to call out segregation in schools because of religious, cultural and ethnic sensitivities, Ofsted's chief inspector says.

Amanda Spielman warned there are now so many parents from different backgrounds that what would have been acceptable in schools 50 years ago is now no-longer acceptable to the vast majority.

She revealed two cases of schools that discriminated against girls in an exclusive interview with Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

"In a school in Birmingham we found some very, very rigid segregation that meant that boys were always put ahead of girls for everything," Ms Spielman said.

"Children literally didn't see each other. We found books in the library saying men can beat their wives - provided they don't leave a mark - and that women aren't entitled to refuse sex to their husbands." [Sky News] Read more

Many Muslims are still in denial about sexual abuse

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in religious organisations and settings has sensibly widened its scope to include most forms of religious practice in the UK. Islam is the country’s second-largest religion, with more than three million adherents, nearly 40 per cent of them under 25 years old.

The problem is that discussion of sexual acts is taboo within a majority of Islamic culture and practice. Sex education is frowned upon in schools; open discussions about male and female body parts, sex outside marriage and birth control are discouraged.

.... the Cardiff-based cleric convicted of 14 sexual offences in 2017, based on the testimonies of four courageous victims, was given a full Islamic funeral service in the mosque where the crimes took place. The survivors were vilified and shunned by their communities. This case exemplifies the denial surrounding sexual abuse within Muslim communities. With no central religious authority, power is localised. Is it any wonder that survivors rarely come forward? [The Times (£)] Read more

Councillor will not face police action over 'Islamophobic' Twitter posts

Stourbridge councillor Colin Elcock has been given an indefinite suspension by the Dudley Conservative Group after he was reported over the posts. He will now sit as an independent.

West Midlands Police launched an investigation but said the posts, which said Islam was “domination not integration” and asked whether people in Iran were “all on the dole”, did not "meet the threshold for criminal prosecution".

A force spokesman said: "Police launched an investigation into a complaint regarding social media comments.

"A thorough investigation was carried out, with all of the evidence obtained and reviewed. It was concluded that the comments did not meet the threshold for criminal prosecution." [Express & Star] Read more

Islamic faith school to sue Ofsted after being failed over 'inflammatory' library leaflet

A faith school that was rated "inadequate" by Ofsted after a 25 year old leaflet was found in its library has mounted a legal challenge.

Birchfield independent girls’ school in Aston is suing the schools regulator saying it fell victim to “draconian and inconsistent inspection practices”.

The "inflammatory" leaflet stated: "Today we find that the sons and daughters of Islam are under continuous attack by the forces of non-Islam." It also promotes the Khaleefah which is defined as "the total rulership of Muslims over the world".

The school would have been rated "good" had it not been for the discovery of the literature. [inews.co.uk] Read more

Hackney councillors vote unanimously to adopt Islamophobia definition

Hackney councillors last night voted unanimously to adopt a new definition of Islamophobia that commits the Town Hall to speak out against the rise in racism against Muslims.

A speech by Cllr Humaira Garasia (Lab, Haggerston) on her fears of being targeted by Islamophobic racists received a standing ovation.

Cllr Garasia was speaking as part of her motion asking the Town Hall to formally accept the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims’ definition of Islamophobia.

In a rare show of unity for the Hackney Council chamber, councillors from both Labour and Conservative party groups voted to endorse the definition.

Cllr Garasia said: “Do you know how it feels to think twice about waiting for a train at the platform, particularly when there’s a rush and you’re not so far from the yellow line?

“The thoughts that race through my mind – ‘Humaira, be careful. You’re wearing the hijab. Someone might push you onto the tracks. Keep your legs firm, have a look around.’ [Hackney Citizen] Read more

Muslim Council of Britain welcomes Town Hall motion to adopt Islamophobia definition

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has welcomed a motion put forward by Cllr Humaira Garasia (Lab, Haggerston) calling for the Town Hall to adopt a parliamentary group’s definition of Islamophobia.

The definition was announced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims in December 2018, and became the centre of debate in May last year after the government rejected it, saying that its wording needed “further careful consideration”.

If voted through, the motion would commit the Town Hall to endorsing and adopting the definition, as well as speaking out against the rise in recent years of racism targeting “Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.

MCB Secretary General Harun Khan said: “Islamophobia is rife across Britain, often perpetuated by elected politicians and the media, which then has real life implications for Muslims in terms of hate crime and abuse. [Hackney Citizen] Read more

Islamic £1,500-a-year private school is 'unlawfully' segregating pupils boys and girls in separate buildings, reveals Ofsted after unannounced inspection

An Islamic faith private school 'unlawfully' segregates its pupils according to their sex, an emergency Ofsted inspection has revealed.

Markazul Uloom in Blackburn, Lancashire, charges parents £1,500 a year and is registered as 'mixed'.

But an unannounced inspection by the education watchdog found male and female pupils are separated 'for the whole of their education and at social times'.

Students at the school, which caters for 11 to 19-year-olds, are 'not well prepared for life in British society', the report said.

Lead Ofsted inspector John Nixon found boys and girls being taught in separate buildings and following different timetables.

Male pupils were banned from studying textiles, while girls were banned from taking history at GCSE level. [Daily Mail] Read more

Blackburn's Markazul Uloom school 'unlawfully segregating pupils by sex'

Markazul Uloom, an independent Islamic faith school in Blackburn, was subject to an Ofsted inspection called for by the Department for Education.

Ofsted found that the school ­— registered as a mixed school ­— is organised so the 176 pupils are segregated by sex “for the whole of their education and at social times”.

John Nixon, lead inspector, reported: “This is unlawful discrimination because of sex, contrary to the Equality Act 2010.”

Pupils are taught in separate buildings and follow different timetables at the £1,500 per year school and the segregation is said to have a detrimental impact on children’s education. Ofsted found boys can study history in Key Stage Four but girls cannot. Similarly, girls can study textiles or geography, but boys cannot.

The report added: “The school has one science laboratory. This is in the building designated as the girls’ section. As a result, boys do not have access to this high-quality learning resource to undertake practical experiments. As a result of the policy and practice of segregation by sex operating in the school, pupils from both sexes suffer detriment to their education.” [Lancashire Telegraph] Read more