Sharia law incompatible with human rights

This article shows the dangers of headlines quite neatly, and, indeed of simplifying complex issues too much. As it is, the Guardian doesn't do a bad job with the article even if the headline could be interpreted misleadingly. Sharia law incompatible with human rights legislation, Lords say. One of the issues is to recall that, for example, while this statement is true: "The comments followed months of debate over the appropriateness of incorporating sharia courts into the UK's legal system. Such a move has been advocated by figures including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and Lord Phillips, the new senior law lord.", Rowan Williams' advocacy was caveated by saying that such allowance of sharia should be applied in such a way as to be compatible with existing human rights legislation. The other issue is to note that there are several interpretive traditions of sharia -though most of them would still be critiquable in this way. "'The fact is, however, that sharia law as it is applied in Lebanon was created by and for men in a male-dominated society,'" And that should alert us also to another dimension of the whole debate, that Muslim feminists would argue that Qur'anic principles are far more women-friendly than much traditional interpretations have allowed. However, that is a struggle that the Muslim Ummah largely still has to face; I'm not optimistic that it has the resources to respond well to that agenda given how the relevant doctrines have developed in Islam; it would mean going back behind developments now seen as normative. Still, you never know...