10th March 2012

Opposition is mounting to the growing use of Islamic law to settle civil disputes in Britain as a Muslim campaigner backs a bill that aims to stop sharia councils from falsely claiming legal status in England and Wales. The BBC recently highlighted the increasing use of sharia by thousands of Muslims to settle disputes each year. An estimated 85 sharia councils now operate in Britain, and several bodies, such as the Islamic Sharia Council, have reported a large increase in their case-load. Sheikh al-Haddad said: Our cases have more than tripled over the past 3 to 5 years. On an average month we can deal with anything from 200 to 300 cases. A few years ago it was just a small fraction of that. 
Muslims are becoming more aligned with their faith and more aware of what we are offering them. As demand for the use of sharia law increases, opposition to it is also growing. Campaigners are concerned that women are being denied justice in sharia courts where they do not enjoy the same rights as men. Non-Muslims are also discriminated against under Islamic law. The Christian and humanitarian campaigner Baroness Cox introduced a bill to the House of Lords last year that seeks to create a new offence – punishable by up to five years in prison – of falsely claiming legal jurisdiction over criminal or family law. 
Opponents are concerned that the acceptance of certain aspects of Islamic civil law in Britain could be the start of a slippery slope into full-blown sharia. In a report published in 2010, human rights campaign group One Law For All argued: Despite all efforts to package Sharia’s civil code as mundane, its imposition represents an attempt by Islamists to gain further influence in Britain. By undermining British legal principles of equality before the law, the concept of one law for all and the protection of the rights of women and children, these courts help to increase discrimination against the most vulnerable. They also deny people their rights and leave them at the mercy of Islamists. Source: Australia Prayer Network Newsletter 27/2/12

Her Muslim neighbours and relatives grieved the loss of this relatively young mother of nine children. But after mourning her death for 12 hours, God brought a miracle that touched many lives. “This is one of the most unusual and dramatic testimonies we’ve ever recorded in our  ministry,” says Dr. Howard Folz, president and founder of AIMS. “It all started when a man named Warsa got saved and then God spoke to him that he would be used by God to see the dead raised.” Trained as a missionary by AIMS, Warsa was already reaching many Muslims with the good news about Jesus Christ. Then one of women in his village became ill. 
“For two months I was very seriously sick,” says Fatuma Shubisa.  Fatuma grew up in a Muslim home, but she and her husband converted to Christianity. One day Fatuma’s mother came to visit her ailing daughter was shocked to find her lying motionless and unresponsive. She searched in vain for a pulse or heartbeat, but Fatuma’s body was already cold. She closed Fatuma’s eyes and straightened her leg. Unable to control her grief, she began to wail, and her shreiks aroused many of her Muslim neighbours who gathered in and around the home. They too began to grieve. 
Meanwhile, a missionary named Warsa Buta was walking nearby and saw the crowd gathered around Fatuma’s home. When he learned of her passing, he went inside and began to pray. Some wondered why he prayed, since she had already been dead 12 hours. When he heard the murmuring, he persisted in prayer, because he remembered the promise God gave him as a young believer, that he would be used in such a time as this. Could this be the day? “I had faith the Lord would work through me,” Warsa says. “I prayed as Peter prayed, ‘Fatuma, be raised…I ask you in the name of the Lord, come to life… “Fatuma, be raised in the name of Jesus!”
Suddenly, Fatuma sat up in the bed, as everyone gasped in astonishment. Most of those around her were speechless. “Can he call back a dead person – a dead soul to a body?” someone asked. “If this is real, we will all become Christians,” one man said. “Your God is a very powerful God!” another shouted. Many believed in the Lord Jesus that day and there was great rejoicing in Fatuma’s village. She is convinced she knows the reason for her return. “I came back because it was the will of God for me to live with my children, but I would be very happy to go back to heaven” she notes. “When a Christian dies he goes to a place where everything is good, where everyone is happy.”Source: Australia Prayer Network Newsletter 27/2/12

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld Austria's ban on in-Vitro fertilization and ruled against destroying human embryos for scientific research. In addition they surprised many by upholding Ireland's abortion ban. Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defence fund said "Two or three years ago, you would never have thought that within a year you would have three pro-life victories in the courts.” Some of the credit is given to the fact that Catholic majority eastern European nations are serving as a moral balance to the more humanistic western nations in the European Union. The very Western, liberalized way of thinking is losing its monopoly over the ECHR. Source: Australia Prayer Network Newsletter 27/2/12

District Court Judge Paul Conlon has overturned the assault conviction of a stepfather who cuffed his 13-year-old stepson lightly over the head after he swore at his mother and refused to wash the dishes. The man also grabbed the boy on top of his arm when he tried to go to the bathroom to get out of chores. The man had been convicted in Wollongong Local Court of assault causing actual bodily harm after the boy's birth father had called police. In a decision that will further inflame the debate about smacking, Judge Conlon said children needed effective discipline.
"One of the reasons that so many young people find themselves in trouble with the law is that there has been an absence of any effective discipline in their lives," Judge Conlon said. "I find that the physical force used in this case was reasonable, having regard to the fact that the child was a healthy 13-year-old boy," he said. The judge said there was no way he was condoning violence against children. "However, it is a sad day when caring parents, attempting to impart some discipline to their children, are dragged before  court and have convictions imposed against them in circumstances such as the present." Judge Conlon said anti-smacking "experts" did not "live in the real world". Source: Australia Prayer Network Newsletter 27/2/12

British Cabinet minister Baroness Warsi, a Muslim has hit out at the way in which faith is being attacked by a rising tide of “militant secularisation”. She spoke whilst leading a delegation of government ministers on a two-day visit to the Vatican. She said that one of the most worrying aspects of militant secularism was that “in its instincts it is deeply intolerant”. She said Europe needed to be “more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity” as she criticised the way in which Christianity had virtually been written out of the European Constitution. Faith, she said, had been “neglected, undermined – and yes, even attacked – by governments" in recent years. 
“You should not extract these Christian foundations from our nations any more than you should erase the spires from our landscapes,” she said. “My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere. “It seems astonishing to me that those who wrote the European Constitution made no mention of God or Christianity” Baroness Warsi spoke just days after the High Court ruled that it was unlawful for a council to say prayers during its meetings. Source: Australia Prayer Network Newsletter 5/3/12