The cornerstone of the American project is the principle of justice administered under the Rule of Law.

Our civic allegiance is not to a monarch, a tribal leader, a church canon, or any specific religious doctrine, but to the Constitution and the rich legal system that flows from the Western tradition.

This essential truth has been under threat from an abhorrent and highly destructive development, which has been exacerbated in recent decades by the challenges of mass migration and failed assimilation policies: the proliferation of private religious arbitration centers, most commonly known as Sharia Councils.

Proponents and apologists for these centers shield them from scrutiny by claiming the religious protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. This is a dangerous and, quite frankly, idiotic conflation of categories that commingles mosque and state. We must call these councils what they are: centers that host a parallel legal system operating simultaneously with federal and state law within the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States.

Sharia Councils seek to adjudicate matters of civil and family law — including domestic disputes, divorce, custody, financial obligations, and contracts. To defend the Rule of Law and the rights of every citizen (especially the vulnerable women and children these systems often abuse), these quasi-judicial centers must be prohibited.

Legal Usurpation

This is not a theoretical problem; the operation of these councils results in documented injustice across Western jurisdictions.

In the United States, my home of North Texas became host to the nation’s very first formal Islamic tribunal in 2015, established to handle cases involving divorce and business disputes. (RELATED: A Texas City’s Quiet Claim to Islamic Territory)

Investigative reporting and evidence presented to Parliament in the U.K. revealed instances of Sharia councils pressuring Muslim women to return to, or stay in, abusive marriages by attempting to mediate domestic violence cases, sweeping criminal matters under the rug, and failing to inform victims of their rights to police protection. Moreover, studies show that Sharia arbitration tribunals handle proportionally far more domestic violence cases than civil courts, indicating they are positioned as a substitute for national legal protection. (RELATED: Western Nations Are Ceding Sovereignty to Sharia Councils)

Moreover, Former Home Secretary Theresa May cited evidence of women being “divorced” under Sharia law without civil recognition, leaving them deprived of their rightful assets, child custody, and more. In specific inheritance arbitration cases, councils applied Sharia principles, resulting in men receiving double the financial share of their sisters, a practice directly contradictory to the fundamental principle of gender equality under Western law. (RELATED: It’s Past Time to Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization)

These outcomes prove that the system is not merely one of spiritual guidance, but a mechanism for institutionalizing inequality. (RELATED: You Get (and Deserve) What You Tolerate. That Isn’t Good News for the UK.)

Arbitration Is a Legal Exercise, Not a Religious One

The core argument for outlawing these councils rests on a simple distinction. The First Amendment protects a citizen’s right to worship, to gather, to preach, and to live according to the dictates of conscience. This is the free exercise of religion. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam)

This protection covers who you associate with, how you pray, which creed you profess, and what spiritual counsel you receive regarding your personal life.

However, once spiritual counsel devolves into a formal “arbitration” process, it shifts entirely from the religious sphere into the legal sphere. 

“Arbitration” is a legal term, defining a method of dispute resolution outside of civil litigation. This process often results in an agreement that a civil court may be asked to uphold or enforce.

Marriage, divorce, and child custody are not merely spiritual concepts; they are legal statuses, defined and recognized by the sovereign state. Therefore, when a religious council makes a determination on the validity of a marriage, or dictates the terms of a divorce settlement or custody arrangement, it is not engaging in worship. It is instead engaging in a legal exercise that blatantly usurps state power and its God-given authority.

This is one reason why Islamic religious arbitration centers stand in stark contrast to the Christian practice of church discipline. Church discipline involves spiritual accountability, access to sacraments, and the fencing of Christian fellowship. Its “jurisdiction” is the eternal soul and the great visible communio sanctorum. It does not (and cannot) claim jurisdiction to determine the legal validity of a marriage, mandate child support payments, or award property based on a religious code. Following Augustine’s distinction between the earthly city and the heavenly city, and Pope Gelasius’s “Two Swords” doctrine, the Christian model operates solely in the ecclesiastical realm. Religious arbitration centers trespass into the legal realm, and this boundary must be strictly enforced.

As legal scholars Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld and Frank J. Costa, Jr. argue, when secular courts uphold the arbitration decisions of tribunals that apply religious principles to disputes legislated by the state, they commit an act of unconstitutional “reverse-entanglement.” If religious tribunals are allowed to rule on federal rights, subject to minimal judicial review, a virtually unreviewable religious body can have the final say on a citizen’s fundamental rights.

Codifying Subordination: The Inherent Inequality

The second (and most important and pressing) reason for prohibition is the inherent conflict between the laws applied by these councils and the American principle of legal equality. This is particularly true in the case of women. (RELATED: ICC Fails Afghan Women. Filmmakers Step In.)

Arbitration centers rooted in traditional interpretations of Islamic law often apply principles that codify the subordinate status of women in matters of family and contract. As the late Christian scholar Norman L. Geisler observed, the Qur’an affords a “lower status to women” and grants men a “degree of advantage over them” in matters like divorce. (RELATED: A Review of Robert Spencer’s Muhammad: A Critical Biography)

While a man can unilaterally divorce his wife, a woman seeking divorce (khul’ or faskh) often requires the consent of the council and may be forced to forfeit the mandatory bridal gift from her husband (mahr).

The same texts permit forms of marital discipline that are wholly incompatible with American law and constitute illegal actions. Sura 4:34, addressing perceived rebellion (nushūz), outlines a three-step method for men, culminating in the right to “scourge” or “strike” them. This provision for physical discipline of a wife by a husband constitutes domestic violence under U.S. law, regardless of religious motivation.

Furthermore, in the realm of contracts, “Two women must bear witness in civil contracts as opposed to one man.” When principles drawn from these disturbing texts are translated into the binding determinations of a religious arbitration panel, they legalize inequality. They subject Muslim women, who are guaranteed equal protection under the law, to outcomes that are inherently discriminatory based on their gender.

This is not a matter of private theological belief. It is a matter of state sovereignty and American ideals of justice drawn from the riches of Western antiquity and the sacred texts of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Hebrew Bible scholar Christopher Wright notes that even when customs like polygamy and divorce were tolerated in ancient Israel, the law immediately stepped in to regulate them and limit their exploitative effects on women.

These historical precedents, rooted in Judeo-Christian values, stand in stark contrast to ad-hoc bodies staffed by clerics whose interpretations leave their coerced victims with no recourse. The claim of “consent” or “voluntary entry” into these Sharia arbitration agreements is disingenuous; these decisions are often made under intense familial and community duress.

Preserving Sovereignty

The very existence of these bodies creates a dire situation ripe for coercion, injustice, and intrusion on national sovereignty. When the state permits these institutions to exist, it validates a perversion of justice and undermines its own authority.

The path forward is clear. In 2005, the Canadian province of Ontario banned religious arbitration in all family law matters. They mandated that all family arbitration must be conducted exclusively in accordance with the law of the land. This approach is the correct one. It does not interfere with personal faith or spiritual counseling, but it affirms the exclusive right of the sovereign state to administer justice.

To uphold the Rule of Law, to guarantee equal protection to all, and to ensure that no citizen is subjected to a system that codifies their inherent subordination, we must outlaw and close these centers.

American law and Judeo-Christian values cannot coexist with Sharia. Justice for All is non-negotiable.

David Bumgardner is a Christian, minister, and author who is a former fellow for Baptist News Global. David’s work includes theological reflections, book reviews, opinion editorials, and featured news and analysis pieces.

READ MORE:

Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam

The West Learned From Defeat. So Must Islamic Civilization.

, 2025-11-22 03:07:00, , The American Spectator | USA News and Politics, %%https://spectator.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://spectator.org/feed/, David Bumgardner