The House of Lords today drew stark attention to the conflict between sharia and UK law, calling the Islamic legal code "wholly incompatible" with human rights legislation.

The remarks came as the Lords considered the case of a woman who, if she was sent back to Lebanon, would be obliged under sharia law to hand over custody of her 12-year-old son to a man who beat her, threw her off a balcony and, on one occasion, attempted to strangle her.

The woman was seeking asylum in the UK to avoid the provisions of sharia law that give fathers or other male family members the exclusive custody of children over seven.

In the most high-profile UK criticism of the family law provisions of sharia law so far, the Lords stated that these provisions breached the mother''s rights to family life and the right against discrimination and were severely disruptive to the child.

The comments followed months of debate over the appropriateness of incorporating sharia courts into the UK''s legal system.

CAIRO // While the Quran permits a husband physically to discipline his wife should she disobey him, a recent wave of rulings by Islamic scholars are encouraging women to fight back.

This week, Sheikh Abdel Hamid Al Atrash, who heads the committee for fatwas, or religious edicts, at Al Azhar University in Cairo, Sunni Islam’s highest institute, ruled that women are entitled to use violence to defend themselves from abusive husbands.

“A wife has the legitimate right to hit her husband in order to defend herself,” the independent daily Al Masry Al Youm quoted Sheikh Atrash as saying on Monday. “Everyone has the right to defend themselves, whether they are a man or a woman … because all human beings are equal before God.”

Sheikh Atrash’s fatwa comes on the heels of similar rulings by religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

A visiting professor has sparked protests from many members of the Muslim community after she became the first woman in Britain to lead an Islamic prayer service.

Amina Wadud arrived in Oxford on Friday to perform the service before a mixed congregation of men and women at Wolfson College.

The event marked the start of a conference on Islam and feminism at the college and has provoked mosques throughout the country to weigh into the debate.

A Muslim student at Oxford opposed the event, saying, "It is clearly stipulated in law, with agreement from the majority of Islamic schools of thought, that amongst the main factors in choosing an Imam, or leader of prayer, are being male, just, and having a good command of the Arabic language."

He added that though there is no direct reference in the Qu''ran to suggest that a woman leading the congregational prayer is not allowed, the Qu''ran is not the sole basis upon which Islamic law is based upon.

He said, "Muslims extract law not only from the Holy Qu''ran, but also from the teachings of the Prophet and his progeny."

    Maybe Islamic cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid is just more of a Bugs Bunny sort of guy?

    In an interview with Al-Majd Television the sheikh, a former diplomat who once served in the Saudi embassy in Washington, condemned cartoons that endear rodents to their viewers.

    Islamic law, he said, sees the mouse as “a repulsive, corrupting creature” while children today see mice as loveable and “awesome” because of animated shows like Tom and Jerry, and Disney staple Mickey Mouse.

    “Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases,” Al-Munajid tells the interviewer.

    “The shari’a refers to the mouse as ‘little corrupter,’ and says it is permissible to kill it in all cases. It says that mice set fire to the house, and are steered by Satan. The mouse is one of Satan’s soldiers,” he goes on to say.

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Muslim women are to be guaranteed equal rights in marriage under a new wedding contract negotiated by leading Islamic organisations and clerics in Britain.

Hailed as the biggest change in Sharia law in Britain for 100 years, a married Muslim couple will now have equal rights. A husband will have to waive his right to polygamy, allowed under Islamic law, in the new contract which has been described as “revolutionary”.

Currently Muslims in Britain have an Islamic ceremony called a nikah (a non register office marriage) which, although it is guaranteed under Sharia law, is not legally binding and does not provide a woman with written proof of the marriage and of the terms and conditions agreed between the spouses.

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Director of the Muslim Institute and one of the authors of the contract, told The Daily Telegraph: “The document is a challenge to various sharia councils who don’t believe in gender equality but the world has changed and Islamic law has to be renegotiated.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was criticised earlier this year when he called for greater recognition of Sharia in British civil legislature, a view that was echoed recently by the Lord Chief Justice Phillips.

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A prominent Egyptian cleric has created controversy by issuing a fatwa that says tiny amounts of alcohol are permissible in Islam.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi's fatwa says a level of 0.5% is allowed, whereas most Muslims would say alcohol of any quantity is banned.
Sheikh Qaradawi was recently refused entry to Britain as the UK government said his views could spark violence.
He issued his fatwa in response to a question about high energy drinks.

'Distorted'

Sheikh Qaradawi is talking about tiny quantities of alcohol - equivalent to about one-eighth of that found in one unit of light beer.
He ruled there was no religious ban on consuming drinks with a minute amount of alcohol in them if it was formed naturally through the process of fermentation.
He quoted the rule derived from the sayings of the Prophet that if drinking a lot of alcohol makes you intoxicated then drinking a little is also forbidden.
Sheikh Qaradawi argued that any person who consumed a large amount of high energy drink would not become intoxicated, therefore they were permissible, even though they contained tiny amounts of alcohol.
But this logic has not gone down well.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's most revered cleric said in a rare fatwa this week that two writers should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" and put to death if they do not repent.

Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak was responding to recent articles in al-Riyadh newspaper that questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.

"Anyone who claims this has refuted Islam and should be tried in order to take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam," said the fatwa, or religious opinion, dated March 14 and published on Barrak's Web site.

"It is disgraceful that articles containing this kind of apostasy should be published in some papers of Saudi Arabia, the land of the two holy shrines," he said, referring to Muslim holy places in Mecca and Medina.

The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".

Those newly risking eternal punishment include drug pushers, the obscenely wealthy, and scientists who manipulate human genes. So "thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments" or "thou shalt not pollute the earth" might one day be added to the Ten Commandments.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

The new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession - or the Sacrament of Penance in Church jargon.

According to a survey carried out here 10 years ago by the Catholic University, 60% of Italians have stopped going to confession altogether. The situation has certainly not improved during the past decade.

The Church of England's archbishops have voiced "serious reservations" over the method and timing of the government's plans to abolish the blasphemy laws and have asked to be reassured about the central position of the Christian religion in relation to the state and society in Britain.

In a joint letter to Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, the archbishops of Canterbury and York said that although the church had signalled for 20 years that the blasphemy laws could, in the right context, be abolished, they had "serious reservations about the wisdom of legislating at this moment".

The government has tabled an amendment to its criminal justice and immigration bill scrapping the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel which is expected to be debated by the House of Lords in the next few days.

The government promised to scrap the law subject to consultation with the Church of England when it faced defeat at the Commons stages of the criminal justice bill after the Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris moved to press the case for its abolition.

The two archbishops, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, make it clear that they will not oppose the abolition of blasphemy but say the government needs to be clear as to precisely why the offence is being scrapped. They argue that it should not be seen as a "secularising move" or as a general licence to attack or insult religious beliefs and believers.

They say it is still too early to be sure how the new offence of incitement to religious hatred, which applies to all faiths, will operate in practice and that laws which carry "a significant symbolic charge" should not be changed lightly.

A US businesswoman living in Saudi Arabia fears for her life after the religious police issued a rare statement defending her arrest this month for having coffee with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.

Yara, a 37-year-old married mother of three, said that she was strip-searched, forced to sign false confessions and told by a judge that she would “burn in hell”, before she was released on February 4.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice denounced her publicly with a statement posted on the internet on Monday night saying that her actions violated the Sharia of the country.

“It’s not allowed for any woman to travel alone and sit with a strange man and talk and laugh and drink coffee together like they are married,” it said.