MARTHA LINDEN The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, yesterday defended his decision to raise the issue of sharia law - but acknowledged his responsibility for any "misleading choice of words" that had helped to cause "distress or misunderstanding" among the public at large.
Dr Williams said he believed "quite strongly" that it was not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues around the perceived concerns of other religious communities.
"Some of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said in the Royal Courts of Justice last Thursday," he told the opening of the General Synod meeting in London.
"But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview, and for any misleading choice of words that has helped to cause distress or misunderstanding."
He added: "I'm deeply grateful to many of you for the support as well as the challenges I have received this weekend, and for your willingness to treat all this as a serious issue that deserves attention.
"But I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues around the perceived concerns of other religious communities and to try to bring them into better public focus."
Dr Williams was speaking following the hostile reception to his remarks in a BBC interview last Thursday, in which he said the adoption of some aspects of Islamic sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
Dr Williams said he wanted to "pick up" a couple of points which he thought were distorted in the discussion after his remarks.
"We are not talking about parallel jurisdictions - and I tried to make clear that there could be no blank cheques' in this regard, in particular as regards to some of the sensitive questions about the status and liberties of women," he said. "The law of the land still guarantees for all the basic components of human dignity."
Dr Williams added that he had had a "fair amount" of recent first hand contact with Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries which had left him with "no illusions" about the sufferings they could, and did, face - even when there was a national legal framework which fully recognised their liberties.
He said he noted that many Muslim majority countries distinguished clearly between the rights of citizens overall and the duties accepted by some citizens of obedience to Islamic law.
"It is this that encourages me to think that there may be ways of engaging with the world of Islamic law on something other than an all or nothing basis," he said.
He had hoped to raise a wider question about the relation between faith and law.
It was taken for granted that the law protected the consciences of religious believers, he said, and all he said last week needed to be read in that context.
Alastair McBay, spokesman for the National Secular Society, said Dr Williams's ideas concerning Sharia law were long-held. "This is an argument that has been going on for decades," he said.
"The Archbishop's point is that people have loyalties and affiliations other than to the British Crown.
"He is entitled to say anything that he wants, but we totally disagree that religious belief should be more special than any other kind of belief. He is putting religious belief above the law."
Dr Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary general of the British Muslim Council, said Muslims should support Dr Williams.
"I think what is important is that the Archbishop affirmed his original desire for constructive, measured debate on the subject. He has not withdrawn his opinions," he said.
