What isn't wrong with Maryam Namazie’s view of Sharia law?

She claims that the current Muslim arbitration tribunals which operate under the arbitration act and Sharia councils are a demand of ‘Islamism’ to restrict citizens rights, in particular those of women, and that Sharia law is functioning as a parallel legal system here in the UK.

Sharia courts do not in anyway work as parallel systems, but work in conjunction with British Law, so that tribunals can only result in rulings that comply with UK law. Maryam mentions child custody as an example of alleged dissonance between the systems of law, claiming that custody reverts to the father at a preset age regardless of circumstance, whereas in British law, the child’s best interests are the court’s paramount consideration. This is a false comparison, since she compares the detailed rulings (Hukm) of the Sharia law, which is the prefixed age, with British law’s purpose of the law (legal theory), which is the Child's best interest. Her false comparison ignores the fact that in Sharia law, the child reverts to the father after the age if seven, in the view that it is in the Child’s best interest. The child’s best interest remain the primary consideration and were the father not considered the best carer, custody would not revert to him, just as it wouldn’t to a mother in British law in the opposite scenario. This simplistic assessment, which claims that, unlike other legal systems, sharia law is fixed regardless of the circumstances, is an erroneous conflation of Sharia law (the ideal) with the application of the law (fatwa). A fatwa is a Juristic verdict or the general Sharia ruling applied to a specific situation. If the situation is such that the child’s best interest are compromised, then a fatwa would be ruled for the child to reside with the mother instead of the father even if the prefixed age of the child is meet.

Similarly, British law views that the ideal is that children should reside with the mother until a certain age, but this can change if the best interest of the child dictates that the child be better off with the father...

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