Ruth Gledhill: Archbishop's Q & A on Sharia

From Ruth Gledhill's blog at the TimesOnline (U.K.), a write-up of the transcript of Archbishop Rowan's interview that started all the contentiousness (but before you read that, go to Iowahawk for the "poetic" reaction, Heere Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte):

I've obtained a transcript of the Q&A the Archbishop of Canterbury did after last Thursday's lecture. The text throws a little more light on what precisely he was trying to get at. One thing leaped out at me. Although he emphasised again was not talking about 'parallel jurisdictions', he did say he wanted 'to look for parallel situations'. And he did also advocate 'supplementary jurisdiction' to the law of the state. As Melanie Phillips said on last night's Question Time, there really is not that great a distinction between a parallel and a supplementary jurisdiction. I draw your attention once again to Mary Ann Sieghart's article, which gets to the heart of why so many have been so offended by Dr Rowan Williams' remarks. Lapido Media in its blog believes the Archbishop has done the world a favour by 'dropping a bomb' on multiculturalism.

One of the answers he gave was about usury, both sinful and illegal in Islam, as it was once considered by many in Judaism and Christianity but is no longer. Except, it appears, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Judging from what he says here, he really would like the whole of our banking system converted to a Sharia-compliant one as 'a way of addressing serious poverty.' Interesting, then, that some of the most serious poverty in the world subsists among the Sharia-compliant Muslim communities in this and other countries.

You can download for yourself the entire transcript of the post-lecture questions and the Archbishop's answers.

Here are some extracts that I found of interest. . .

Read it all.