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This post first appeared with the Interface Institute. In May 2016 Theresa May, then Home Secretary, commissioned an Independent Review of shariah law in the UK, to inquire whether the activities of British shariah councils, sometimes called shariah courts, are incompatible with British law. Included in the terms of reference was the treatment of women, specifically arrangements for divorce, domestic violence, and children. The Review, led by Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University’ Divinity School, was released in February 2019.

Today just about anything and everything may be objected to as ‘sending us back to the Dark Ages’, including restrictions on subsidies for renewal energies, growth in faith schools, acts of terrorism, destruction of art works, the popularity of right-wing parties in Europe, the rise of superbugs, and denial of global warming. The Dark Ages have become proverbial.