The Times, 18 February 2020
The Grand Mufti of Canterbury and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, Dr Mona al-Aqa’bba announced today proposals for new laws to protect the interests of Christians and other minorities in the West Midlands and other areas of Shariah law.
Dr al-Aqa’bba, the first woman Grand Mufti, claimed that she herself was living proof that a liberal interpretation of the Quruan was now dominant in Her Majesty’s Shariah Courts throughout the United Kingdom. As had been predicted, seeing the obvious moral and cultural benefits of Shariah, many who had formerly been nominal Christians (mostly members of the Church of England) had now opted into the Shariah jurisdictions.
‘But there are’, said the Grand Mufti, ‘residual Christians — a few Anglicans, some Free Church evangelicals, most Roman Catholics — who persistently demand freedom to opt out of the officially constituted Shariah Districts. We have never, since the establishment of Islam as ‘most favoured faith, and the recognition of King William as Caliph of Great Britain, sought to coerce these minorities. Unbelievers have always had an honoured place in the Umma. The proposed legislation will allow Christians and other non-Muslims to apply in certain matters — permission to drink alcohol for other than medical or religious reasons, divorce and remarriage, custody of children, etc. — to a special jurisdiction set up for the purpose. The Supreme Council of the Autonomous Islamic District of the West Midlands will appoint a special officer to ensure the independence of these courts. Of course they will have to be distinctively Christian in outlook and ethos/
Asked who would decide what was authentically Christian in outlook, Professor al-Aqa’bba was clear and uncompromising: ‘We will’.