Amid a small, multi-faith enclave on a residential street in Leyton, the Islamic Sharia Council sits modestly on the corner, opposite the Christian church and the Sikh temple. It’s in a simple terraced building, clearly marked on the side with its name in large white capitals.
The council betrays its origins as an end of terrace house. Inside, the founder’s daughter Khola Hasan poses patiently for our photographs, her face framed by an elegant patterned headscarf and glasses. Hasan, who is herself an Islamic scholar, with two degrees and shelves of Arabic texts on Islamic law, laughs when I ask about the glass-fronted poster on the wall in reception which offers a complicated looking visual flow chart showing a guide to Islamic divorce. “It’s been there for many years”, she says. “We keep meaning to update it. But it is still largely accurate.”
Hasan’s organisation is one of around five such councils in London. Recently, it was stated in the press that there were now so many operating in Britain that we had become “the sharia court capital of the West”. These councils exist primarily, they say, to deal with women stuck in marriages they cannot escape. Some argue that the councils help disenfranchised women in abusive marriages, others say it’s a shadowy backstreet misogynistic world where women are cast away without any of the rights an official marriage would bestow.
A new study on the councils’ work includes the story of Faria, from east London. More than seven years ago, Faria’s husband deserted her.
She was left in a state of limbo as he had refused her an Islamic divorce, which meant she remained married, despite his desertion. For she and her husband had married not under UK law, but had instead entered a marriage contract called nikah, under Islamic (sharia) law. In Islam, this is a legal and social contract. But, as with other faiths, marriages in the eyes of religion offer no legal protection. Faria (whose name has been changed to protect her privacy) applied to a sharia council in London to intervene.
Men can unilaterally decide to end their nikah marriage - women, by contrast, can only seek a divorce with the agreement of the husband
Men can unilaterally decide to end their nikah marriage by a process known as talaq, where they just have to repeat their intention to divorce three times. In one case, a man delivered talaq by a text message and was disappointed when it was not recognised as a legitimate way to obtain an Islamic divorce.
Women, by contrast, can only seek a divorce with the agreement of the husband, or by the decision of a sharia council judge, if the husband is deemed to have behaved badly. With women’s rights taking automatic second place, stories have been shared of women left destitute after being divorced without their consent, whereas others have been trapped in harmful marriages.
A back-room world
Since the early 1980s, sharia councils, often known as courts, have been adjudicating to help Muslim couples navigate Islamic divorce. These councils work with British Muslims, but attract Muslims from overseas, too.
The government has resisted previous calls to regulate councils and consequently it is hard to obtain data about them — including their true number. A 2017 review instigated by Theresa May as part of the government’s counter-extremism strategy, and led by the prominent academic in Islamic studies, Mona Siddiqui, suggested there were between 30 and 85 councils in England and Wales. However, the unofficial number is likely to be far higher, as many operate not as legitimate councils, but in back rooms of mosques.
Their decisions are not legally binding, but they are within the community
The sharia councils have no legal status in London or anywhere else in this country. Nor do they claim to have. They do not consider criminal cases. Contrary to myth, they do not punish thieves or adulterers or order stonings.
Their decisions are not legally binding, but they are within the community. Almost all of their work is related to marital breakdown. They are not usually the venues for Islamic weddings, which may be held in mosques, or other locations such as the home of the bride. But the rise of “back-room” councils is concerning.
Hasan picks up on the “mushrooming” of smaller bodies that she implies are cashing on people’s needs in and around London. She bemoans their lack of integrity and scholarship. She has advocated for a self-regulating body to ensure consistency and propriety.
The Islamic Sharia Council is a registered charity. “You won’t find many of these new places are registered”, she says.
Random unregistered bodies enforcing their various interpretations of Islamic law proliferating in the capital is a huge cause for concern.
Suffering and then discarded
Hasan is the only female Islamic “judge” in the capital. There is one other who works in the Midlands. Hasan does not refer to herself as a judge — “I’m an Islamic scholar” — and also prefers not to refer to the cases she is involved with as “hearings”. The terms are too weighted, she says. “No-one is on trial”. Instead, she holds “meetings” at which she tries to resolve the issues before her.
“I like to listen to both sides”, she says. “Asking for divorce is often a cry for help”. She regularly hears complaints about a spouse’s “un-Islamic lifestyle”.
But she tells me that although the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton is still dealing predominantly with marital breakdown, it is increasingly being called upon to intervene in a broader range of situations. It might be divorce, but it could also be inter-generational disputes, inheritance matters or questions related to fasting and prayer. It has even set up a helpline.
Target for the far-Right
Many people object to what they perceive as the presence of sharia law as a parallel quasi-legal system, even though it has no authority in the eyes of UK law. These informal religious bodies have been accused of misogyny, sexism and exploiting Britain’s tradition of religious freedom, for their own benefit.
The Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton has been visited three times by Britain First, most recently in 2020. Members of the far-Right group burst in, caused havoc, made a scene, then left before the police arrived. They posted a video in triumph. Members told the council it was “barbaric” and “taking liberties” with English law — which was a bit rich, as Britain First had previously been issued with an injunction to stop it “invading” mosques and other Muslim premises (such as councils).
Hasan, who is in her fifties, was there when they came. “I tried to engage with them, I said come, let’s debate. But they weren’t interested.” She is used to the negative attention the council attracts. Only recently they had to wash “child molesters” graffiti off the walls. She wonders how much hate mail they will receive when this article appears.
Most days, however, the visitors at the Islamic Sharia Council are Muslim women seeking extraction from their situation after marital breakdown. There’s no doubt about it, Islamic divorce law — remembering that this “law” has no proper legal status anywhere in the UK — is biased towards men.
A key question, which continues to haunt the councils, is whether they are helping to balance women’s rights — as they insist they are — or perpetuating and enforcing inequalities.
Hasan does not accept that Islamic law favours men. In her view, the men’s way of divorce is just as onerous if done properly, but most people don’t know what the law requires of them. She says she often gets pleas for help from distressed men who believe they have divorced their wives spontaneously in a moment of hot-headedness.
Critics of sharia marriages, however, tell a story of poor, uneducated women from overseas who speak little English suffering horribly in abusive marriages and then being discarded.
But for Faria, the council was a lifeline. When her husband was contacted by them, he told them that despite his seven-year absence, their nikah (Islamic) marriage remained loving.
“Where has he been for the last seven years?”, Faria asked the council’s qadi (judge) overseeing the hearing. She was finding the situation mentally difficult, she said. She couldn’t even go to Hajj, to pilgrimage, while her husband remained her “guardian” and she needed his permission. She needed to be free. The judge decided Faria’s husband was stalling the divorce and said so, issuing a faskh — a decree ending the marriage. “Now you can go to Hajj,” the judge told Faria.
This happened in London, and neither the council nor its decision had any legal basis in the law of the land. As the couple had not been through a civil ceremony of marriage, legally speaking they weren’t even married at all, they were co-habitees.
Her story had a positive ending — yet that is not always the case
By not marrying under UK law, Faria was left with no rights. But, by their faith they were married. Now the husband had gone, the woman wanted out, and the council gave her what she wanted. Her story had a positive ending — yet that is not always the case.
Her case features in the gripping new study by Islam Uddin, a London-based, British Bangladeshi imam who has interviewed nearly 30 women who have been through, or are going through, Islamic divorce. Uddin says it took months to negotiate privileged access to council hearings – and even then, he couldn’t record or take notes until afterwards. His book, Muslim Women and Islamic Family Law: Lived Experiences in Britain, is the result of four years of PhD research.
His findings offer a compelling insight into the current condition of Islamic marriages in London and beyond. They reveal the grim reality for many women who continue to face oppression and violence — sometimes even from their in-laws or their own families, as well as their husbands. A father of four children, and in his early fifties, Uddin conducts nikah ceremonies as an imam and says he always recommends that couples have a civil ceremony too, so their marriage is properly registered and compliant with the law of England and Wales.
But he does not make it a condition — he believes the couples can make their own choices and it is not up to him to tell them what to do.
“I wouldn’t police you in any way or say, oh, did you get it done? Can you get it done first? I wouldn’t. I would just inform them so that they’re informed before they make their decision”.
But if he does suspect coercion, he speaks to the woman alone and seeks the additional assurance of a signed consent form. “I would make sure that I see her, speak to her, see her sign a form. And then we know there’s no coercion.”
Of course, that is not always the case; coercion comes in many forms.
Uddin believes the number of official councils is smaller than the recently-quoted number of around 80-85 in the UK. His research suggested there were only a few “bona fide” councils.
“Other than that, quite a lot of them are, as imams explained to me, just a couple of people working in the back end of a mosque or something like that.” The lack of regulation could mean that they are operating under their own rules.
Among the 27 British Bangladeshi divorced or divorcing women that Uddin spoke to for his study, 18 had been in arranged marriages, three in forced marriages and six had chosen their husbands.
In 21 cases, the women had been married in both Islamic and civil ceremonies. Just six were nikah only. Those figures suggested a significant shift from previous studies. In 2017, research for a Channel 4 documentary put 60 per cent of Muslim women in the UK in unregistered nikah marriages.
Again, reliable statistics are hard to come by, because of the lack of records and regulation.
Among the reasons for marital breakdown....domestic violence was the most common
Among the reasons for marital breakdown cited by women in Uddin’s study, domestic violence was the most common, problems with in-laws were cited in 10 cases and adultery and desertion also features. Polygamy (which is permitted, though not encouraged, in Islam) was mentioned in three cases. That was polygamy in the eyes of Islam — in unregistered nikah marriages.
Polygamy is a crime for those in a civil marriage under UK law.
Uddin reports that physical abuse “often began very early in their marriages, catching them off guard and leaving them unprepared for the reality they would face”.
He changed the names of participants, but the stories they told him were depressingly similar, and revealed the dangers that some women could face in Nikah marriages.
Rupa, for example, was trapped: “He used to beat me up. I was tortured. I wasn’t allowed out of the house, to contact anyone, or even visit my parents’ house. Basically, I was a prisoner.”
Rahima became a domestic slave: “He became overly protective. He wouldn’t let me visit my mum and kept me in the house to cook and clean — I lived with my in-laws. When I asked to visit my family, he slapped me in the face.”
Parvin was held back from revealing her experiences because of honour (izzat): “I was ashamed to tell my parents because of izzat. My dad would take me back, and people would laugh and shame him. I didn’t act on those thoughts, and hiding everything ruined my life.
“I should have told him from the beginning. He would have taken action.”
As often happens, the violence escalated over time. Parvin broke down in tears as she described to Uddin what had happened to her. “I was struggling while pregnant. He used to hit me in the stomach a lot. I get so upset when I think about that time. The hospital did not suspect the abuse. If I had gone to the police, they would have known, but I was so embarrassed, so I used to hide stuff.”
Stuck in an abusive marriage
It appears clear that in cases like these, women stay in abusive marriages for many reasons, whether for the family’s honour, or fearing what would happen if the marriage was dissolved and she was left with no home, no money, and no rights to demand support.
Rupa tried to go home, but her father said, “she’s not allowed in my house”. So she went to a women’s refuge, but even that was against her family’s wishes. Everyone told her she should go back to her violent husband, because what would other people think and say? Uddin found unregistered nikah marriages tended to be shorter — and even women like Rupa believed there were benefits as the procedure needed to gain a divorce was easier.
A sharia council judge told Uddin that some couples opted for unregistered marriages to avoid lengthy civil divorce proceedings. “A couple were married for four months then the woman applied for an Islamic divorce. I asked why she did not have a civil marriage. The woman said thank God she didn’t otherwise she would have had to wait a year to divorce.
“I thought ‘interesting, no children, no maintenance, a quick divorce’.”
But it also means women have no rights, so can be left with no home, no money, no support.
The same judge told Uddin: “Ninety per cent of our cases are women-initiated divorces. Women come to us because they want verification that they are divorced, or because their husband pronounced divorce, or they started civil proceedings and want an Islamic divorce. In other cases, women have no civil marriage and come to the sharia council as they have nowhere else to go to get a divorce.”
Uddin told me the hearings that councils held were semi-formal. No lawyers, wigs or gowns: the involved parties came and gave their accounts, and answered the judge’s questions. There might be a series of hearings, with the parties sent away to find evidence to bring back before the judge.The courts often had to decide issues related to mahr — the sum of money the husband paid to the bride as a gesture of respect and to provide financial security. The sums ranged widely and could be many thousands of pounds.
Sometimes the wife would be ordered to repay the money, sometimes the payments had been deferred and the husband would be ordered to make the payments.
Such orders by a sharia council judge were not legally enforceable. Issues around financial arrangements in divorce, maintenance and child care could only be settled by the civil courts.
That only served to emphasise the vulnerability that women might experience if they had not been through a civil marriage.
The Siddiqui review found evidence of both good and bad practice at sharia councils. Some would support women, report abuse to the police, and were timely and efficient, while others charged very high fees for their services — as much as £900 — could be slow to make decisions and, through counselling and mediation, in some cases, put pressure on women to reconcile and remain in abusive marriages.
The councils’ clients are overwhelmingly women, yet the officials are predominantly men
The councils’ clients are overwhelmingly women, yet the officials are predominantly men — there are believed to be only two known female judges in the country. Their presence speaks to some evidence of reformist, modernist beliefs amid the classical and — as described by one of Uddin’s interviewees — “back-home backwards” mentality of some of the more traditional Islamic scholars and officials. But without ever being accountable to British law, the councils will continue to operate in an unregulated way. Uddin recognised those issues but preferred to focus on women’s agency or control of their own lives.
The councils, he believes, are not where the problems truly lie. “The concern”, one judge told him, “is for women out in society who are vulnerable and suffering due to the lack of access to knowledge and their Islamic rights.”
Hasan tells me the Islamic Sharia Council was the first in the UK (“copied by many but equalled by none thus far”, says its website) set up by her father Suhaib Hasan in 1982 after a conference to consider solutions to the marital issues and other scholarly Islamic concerns that came with the rising population of migrant Muslims.
In 2013, an e-petition calling for a ban on sharia law in the UK (banning the councils, in effect) gathered 20,000 signatures. Crucially, the government declined to intervene — Islamic law has no wider legal status, though it is enforced within the community.
Sharia councils are problematic in many ways. In spite of the people defending them, the system seems to undermine the hard-fought aims of equality in UK marriage law.
Some form of regulation is essential, whether by the government or as Hasan suggests, a self-regulatory body. Until that happens, back-room councils will continue to grow.
