Dr. John R. Bowen (Washington University in St Louis) will undertake research on England's Shariah Councils. Across Europe and North America, some Muslims have proposed the creation of religious tribunals to mediate in family and other disputes. These proposals often meet with opposition from those concerned about lack of transparent procedures, possible patriarchal attitudes towards women and children, and the effects of introducing political Islam into Western law. But in England, Muslims already have created institutions for mediating disputes that are based on Islamic norms or sharî`a. The English case, with its advanced Islamic institutional development, thus provides an instructive case for both social scientific discussions and public policy debates.
The researcher will conduct his investigations primarily at three English councils, two tribunals that offers mediation and one tribunal that offers binding arbitration. He will gather data from observations, interviews, and analyses of decisions, with a focus on how Islamic judges deliberate and reach decisions. Attention will be paid especially to determining the extent to which prior experience of these judges in their countries of origin shapes what they do in England, and to what extent judges craft their decisions around the English social and legal context.
The research forms part of a larger scientific project comparing Islamic deliberative processes across three Western countries: the United States, France, and Great Britain. The research is important because it will add to social scientific knowledge of how Islamic, and, by extension, other religious quasi-legal institutions function in varying contexts. Findings will contribute needed information to public policy debates about the role of religious courts in Western secular societies. The results will be disseminated in planned public lectures and in publications.
