Rowan Williams says Sharia law unavoidable

The adoption of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in Britain "seems unavoidable", the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Dr Rowan Williams said other religions enjoyed tolerance of their own laws, and called for "constructive accommodation" with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes.

	Dr Williams backs adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law

But he stressed that it could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual's rights as a citizen.

Asked if the adoption of Sharia law was necessary for community cohesion, Dr Williams told the BBC: "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.

"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances."

He added: "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.

"It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.

"But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them.

"In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate."

Gordon Brown's spokesman insisted that British law would be based on British values, and Sharia law would be no justification for acting against national law.

But he also said concessions could be made in specific instances, such as a relaxation of the law on stamp duty to avoid it being paid twice when Sharia-compliant mortgages were used by Muslims.

Mr Brown's spokesman said: "In relation to Sharia law, there are instances where the Government has made changes - for example, we have changed the regulation around stamp duty to include Sharia-compliant mortgages."